Zoho CRM User Experience & Interaction Design Blog

Two days back came across an usability issue with multi select list boxes. Here is the situation and issue.

In a certain web form there are 5 multi select list boxes with some values selected already. If the user accidentally clicks on one of the list boxes, by design, the clicked value alone gets selected, making the already-selected-values as un-selected. If the user didnt remember what values were selected earlier.. he will lose the information and this leads to inconvenience.

Anyway the user can still recover from the error, coz unless the user clicks the SAVE button the changed values will not be updated. But still that’s not helpful.

I came across a few ideas to fix this issue.

1. Provide a Restore link below or next the list box. So that if the user accidentally de-selects the previously selected values, the restore link will restore the seletion.

2. Provide a list with checkboxes (something like the windows controls).

The first one requires the users to guess “what this restore link will do? is that a rescue link or will that restore some other old values?”. And by usability norms, making the users to guess is bad. So the first one is ruled out.

The second seems meaningful, as it is familiar to everyone. Checkboxes does not change unless the users specifically clicks them. Using a scollable DIV, one can construct a list-box look alike quickly. This will help in most of the cases.

If you have any ideas/suggestions.. please post it.

-Rajesh Sundaram

Calendar is always an interesting application. For a consumer, it is a productivity tool to capture all his meetings, calls and other stuffs (dubbed generally as EVENTS). Due to my curiosity I checked few app calendars as well as online-calendars, and found that they capture the information about a event in their own ways. But from a close observation, the following pattern can be seen.

For a event they capture:

1. Title / Subject

2. Description

3. Start time (inc date) , End time (inc date)

4. Reminder / Alarm setup

5. Repeat setup, Invite option

6. All Day event ? option

7. Ownership / assign-to-user

8. Priority

9. Public or Private

10. Status (like postponed, cancelled, to be held etc)

For a task or to-do, they capture :

1. Title / Subject

2. Description

3. optional start time (inc date) , End time (inc date)

4. Reminder / Alarm setup

5. Repeat setup, Invite option

6. Ownership

7. Priority

8. Public or Private

9. % completed.

As observed, the events and tasks/to-dos share a common set of information. Only a few unique informations differentiates a task/to-do from a event. The same is found in one dicussion thread (got through googling) that gives more clarity about Event/Task differentiation is here

Certain features like invite, ownership appears only in collaborative environments. And generally, personal calendars do not feature the “ownership / assign to” detail.

-Dharma

Opera was once my favorite browser, during the time I was accessing internet using dial-up connection. Opera was damn fast and pages loaded quickly at that time.

Later, when IE and Firefox got a stronghold and broadband slowly came in, I stopped using Opera coz, it does not support all CSS, javascript functions.

Recently I came across Opera 9 and I am so happy with it ! It supports all the latest style specs, excellent javascript support and the damn cool rendering speed. Best of all, it is FREE !

The guys at Opera has learned over the years. Hope Opera soon becomes one of the standard browsers in the list.

Keep up guys. It’s cool !

ViewSonic is one of the few professional display manufacturers, excellent in terms of quality and reliability. Just when my relative asked me to help him buy a ViewSonic monitor, I tried to get in touch with a authorised dealer.

Sadly, ViewSonic is not that popular in Chennai. Its presence is over-shadowed by korean giants LG and Samsung. So there are few dealers selling the ViewSonic CRT and LCD here. I started off with ViewSonic’s website, browsed the indian subdomain and reached the Contact us. I found that Redington is the dealer for south India. Luckily they are based on Chennai. So I dialled their corporate office. Spoke to someone, who forwarded my call to Mr.Sethumathavan. Mr. Sethumathavan then gave me a number handled by Mr. Balaji. Balaji listened to my queries and finally told me that there are two dealers in Richie street, one Computer Planet and two, Supreme computers. He noted my mobile number and told me that one of the dealers will get in touch with me.

After an hour, a guy from Computer Planet called me and confirmed my requirements and said, they dont have stock right at the moment. So they will deliver the monitor next morning. Finally somehow they arranged for a monitor, but unfortunately it turned out to be black colored one. So again they said they will call me back. I am still waiting for their call.

In this world of instant contacts, it is so pathetic for a reputed brand like ViewSonic to have a weak dealer network. Poor inventory, failing to meet customer requirements, un-availability of a proper point-of-contact… everything leads to brand failure.

Hope ViewSonic strengthen soon.. or else, they will eventually lose their customers’s loyalty.