The Art & Science of Seductive Interactions

Posted via web from vinod v v’s posterous

Why only few interactions are successful?
It is not just usability, there are few more things beyond to make users to stick on with your product or service.

FusionCharts Free V2 – Free Flash Charts

Good news from IndSoft Global for Software/ Web developers. Now IndSoft Global is offering its Fusion charts V2 for Free.

Terms of use:

InfoSoft Global grants you a nonexclusive right to use FusionCharts Free subject to the following terms and conditions:

• FusionCharts Free can be used for free if you are a individual/research/commercial user.
• FusionCharts Free can be distributed for free with your free or commercial softwares, irrespective of whether they’re open source or closed source.
• You must not sell FusionCharts Free as a component in itself. However, your commercial product can embed FusionCharts Free.
• You must not represent in any way that you’re the author of FusionCharts Free.

That’s right it is free and the best part is the license, check the full terms of use right here.

Now your websites and products could offer RIA experience with interactive & meaningful flash charts.

You may want to know why the software is free and the comparison between the new Fusion Charts V3 and V2, find the info right here

Start downloading the Free Fusion charts V2 software right here

Like this link, care to share it with fellow developers.

Know about Silverlight & Expression Studio in chennai

Here is a good chance for

• Creative Directors
• Design Managers
• Graphic Designers
• Interactive Designers
• Multimedia Designers
• Web Designers
• Usability Professionals
  
• UI Developers

to know more about Microsoft Silverlight and Expression studio, the seminar is happening today i.e 13th November 2007 between 6-7 PM at Dublin, ITC Hotel Park Sheraton & Towers, No.132, T.T.K. Road, Chennai-600 018.

Please Note: Registration is between 5:30 to 6pm. Please be at the venue a little in advance to ensure your entry.

Contact for more details: Mr. Brijesh (event organizer) @ 2472-8113

It is short notice and I am really sorry about that, I had saved this post as draft and forgot to publish it.

Hope to meet you all there

Learn Foreign Lanaguges with mango

What if you are able to learn foreign languages at your comfort?
try Mango, languages.

Just tried to learn French, I love the way they spell the French words. Bonjour (”Hello”)

I am sure most school and college students in India would use this portal, All the site needs is little advertisement on the web

One thing I quickly noticed on the usability part, when you sign up they asked for the First Name. I guess they wanted to have it as full name instead of First name, some times typo errors occur.

Dreamweaver good bye, YAML Welcome

YAML is the the new way of designing web layouts.

Adhering  to the

1. Web standards
2. Support of major browsers
3. WYSIWYG options.

When my title said Dreamweaver goodbye, I meant only for creating layouts, YAML compliments Adobe Dreaweaver.

If you are a web designer or a web developer, kindly take a test drive on the YAML Builder. There is a lot to learn from the YAML. Currently the YAML builder is online, YAML downloads are available from the website.

Technorati Tags: adobe, dreamweaver, yaml, WYSIWYG, editor, builer, tools

Aren’t tools making us dumb

Yeah, It is about WYSIWYG editors or IDE for most application we create.
Yes I accept these tools help Productivity which is the major concern.

I just want to explain how Indian (asians) learning methodology differs from the American way of education and it has go to do with the tools which make us dumb

If we just compare the Indian kid with an American kid, there is lot of difference in the way they learn, few are explained below

Indian Kids
Basics or the fundamentals very strong
Why are we strong in our fundamentals?
The basic reason is that our education system still believes in the clark tables and manual calculation no support of calculator till we reach the pre degree or the Plus 1. Our theory knowledge is good but mostly we lack in the practical knowledge, due to lack of infrastructure
Their strength lies with calculation, programming or just take commands to execute things

American Kids
KISS – “keep it simple stupid” is the main idea. or Don’t make me think
Infrastructure has never been a problem, from calculators to Computers are at their disposal. To the funnier site they could even outsource their home work with the use of internet.
Their strength lies in the designing and managerial capabilities

Do you remember those young old days (kindergarten times)how we use to write impositions to remember things or read things aloud

What if we just use text editors and don’t depend on Dreamweaver in the initial stages to learn CSS and XHTML?
Yes that is the right approach, I learned from the pros who have been doing the table less or the css way of creating a web page. I remember the old days where Dreamweaver/ FrontPage was in early stages where I learned by just typing the syntax on a text editor notepad. Today I have been addicted by using dreamweaver and my learning curve has been at large with respect to time.

The same goes with all the IDE s, my developer friends in Opmanger team at Adventnet still continue to use text editors that is how I learned from them.

I don’t say using IDE is a sin. But initially restraining from the use of IDE helps learning curve short. Once you learn the basics or the fundamentals, most things in Dreamweaver  seems to be too relevant. At least it helps you to optimize the Dreamweaver code when it comes to connection scripts with the database.

What do you feel?

Technorati Tags: tools, dreamweaver, productivity, India, US, America, kids, students, learning, IDE

Google follows UI of WordPress

There was a mailer from Google analytics team saying they had made a new version of the product. First impression, The dashboard looks cool with bring colors, options are ultimate.

To my surprise Google Analytics reports UI looks much similar representation as WordPress blogger report UI, well even the hover of mouse. I know it is line graph any body can illustrate it. But Why line graph at the top just like WordPress is my question?

Kindly Note:Click on the image for a larger view

By the way Google Analytics offers much more detailed flash reports.
Thanks google and thanks wordpress for the inspiration.

Technorati Tags: google, wordpress, reports, analytics, fresh, UI, inspiration, flash, flash reports

World Usability Day 2006

Satyam Computers is the main sponsor for this event
If you are an usability engineer or any thing to do with usability in India and would like to participate, please register, as the last date is 13th of November 2006
the event is on 14th of November 2006.
Hope to catch you guys/gals out there.

Technorati Tags: usability, event, satyam, chennai, india

Adobe Website dropdown

After downloading Shockwave player, the player redirected the browser to the player activation page where I found the menu dropdown to be buggy, you can see the second snapshot, I was using IE7 on windows XP.
I was wondering, is there any fix for the dropdown with active X plugin overlap, Flash with dropdown seems to work perfectly,whereas with shockwave there seems to be a bug

does any one have a solution with shockwave with dropdown menu, please let me know

Technorati Tags: adobe, shockwave, menu, dropdowm, activex, plugin, bug

CSS Hack for browsers using simple Javascipt

Have you been facing problems with css styling with different browsers
I faced one with the div width with IE and firefox
Here is a neat trick.

/* save the below code as css_browser_selector.js */
/*

var css_browser_selector = function() {

var ua = navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase();

var h = document.getElementsByTagName(’html’)[0];

var c = h.className;

if(ua.indexOf(’msie’) != -1 && !(ua.indexOf(’opera’) != -1) &&

(ua.indexOf(’webtv’) == -1) ) h.className=’ie’+’

ie’+ua.charAt(ua.indexOf(’msie’)+5)+’ ‘+c;

else if(ua.indexOf(’gecko/’) != -1) h.className=(’gecko ‘+c);

else if(ua.indexOf(’opera’) != -1) h.className=(’opera ‘+c);

else if(ua.indexOf(’konqueror’) != -1) h.className=(’konqueror ‘+c);

else if(ua.indexOf(’applewebkit/’) != – 1) h.className=(’webkit safari ‘+c);

else if(ua.indexOf(’mozilla/’) != -1) h.className=(’gecko ‘+c);

}.apply(this);

*/

once done place this line of code between the  <head> and </head>tag  
/* <script src="css_browser_selector.js" type="text/javascript"></script> */

now place the desire css

<style type=”text/css”>
.ie .example {
width: 102px;
height: 100px;
}
.gecko .example {
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
}
.example {
background-color: black
}
</style>

Most of the css attributes work, give it a spin

I found a great article from rafael

Rafael Lima (http://rafael.adm.br)and 

got inspired to make this post as most of the time we face issues of width and placements etc

if you find the article useful do bookmark them

Technorati Tags: technical, javascript, css, hack, width issue, styles