Zoho CRM User Experience & Interaction Design Blog

Time Management - 30 Second Guide

dharma — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 08:38:26 +0000

Time Management is not a big mystery. It is simple and easy. You should practice it properly to get the best from Time Management. Okay, what all those big books and experts say on effective time management? Do they reveal some big secret? No No!. All the excerpts boils down to the following list.

- Goal setting : Set Short term goals and Long term goals
- Prioritize tasks : Understand the tasks and their importance and prioritize correctly
- And finally, throw away - “I’ll do it later” idea . Do it now!

Follow these and you can win!

If you want to know how good is your time management skills? check it here .

- Rajesh Sundaram

Zoho CRM Lounge - The Coffee cup header

dharma — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 06:33:50 +0000

Here is the full scale image of the coffee cup image drawn in photoshop for Zoho CRM Lounge.

- Rajesh Sundaram

User Interface Cleanliness - The Salt of UID Kitchen!

dharma — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:29:38 +0000

Things look good, if it is clean and tidy. The same principle applies to every object in this earth. Right from your home, the place where you sleep, bath, eat, watch TV, cleanliness helps in maintaining a “fresh” and inviting atmosphere. The same applies to UI design too.

Keep things clean and neat. This cleanliness can be analogous to the Salt we use in cooking. Salt should be used right. Not less, Not more. Or else, it will spoil the whole dish. Similarly, Cleanliness in a UI can be achieved by using right mix of white space and contents. Too much salt (whitespace) then the UI becomes too simple or too thin. Less salt (whitespace) means, too cramped or less breathing.

In web GUI, the cleanliness feeling can be inserted using whitespace and padding/margins. White space can act like a median separating two blocks of information. You can note this if you watch all the Web 2.0 sites out there. Ample space and emphasize on highlights. Highlight the important element on that page/block. Provide ample whitespace around the highlighted element, and the user’s brain captures it. Damn simple. You don’t need a fashion model or some attractive image to grab the attention. Well planned cleanliness will create the desired effect. Balance it right, and it will rock!
- Rajesh Sundaram

6 steps to think like a Millionaire - from Mindcafe.org

dharma — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:51:05 +0000

Wow! I must say that is a good post. You don’t need to spend money buying a book. But just read the 6 steps. A really nice post to read and jazz up the life.

http://www.mindcafe.org/6-steps-to-think-like-a-millionaire

- Dharma

Simple, Hassle-free, radiation-free, headset design for mobile phones

dharma — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:59:57 +0000

In our country, talking on mobile phone while driving is against Law. So I mostly avoid picking up calls during driving, or I pull over and pick up the call. Sometimes I wonder if I could wear a handsfree and answer the calls while I am driving.

I tried the supplied hands-free headphone with my Nokia 6233. Apart from the good quality, the hands-free headphone has two issues.

1. Wearability :- It does take some solid 30 seconds to wear it around your neck and put the two ear pieces on.

2. Mic Position :- The MIC is placed on the dongle that actually falls on the chest. This awkward position picks up other sounds rather than my voice.

I tried using the Bluetooth headsets, but they often created pain in the ear and a weird feeling that I looked deaf. Also BT headsets has the same problem of picking up lot of wind noises when driving. So they too seemed useless.

All the highend headsets (wired and wireless) seemed to focus on quality but not on wearability. My “best” headset would feature a simple connector with a Mic that hangs/sticks around my collar and a single ear piece. Fortunately I was able to find some, but they are often bundled with entry level headsets that feature a different connector. I am still searching for a good hands-free headset that fits my Nokia 6233.

In my opinion, a perfect hassle-free, radation free (bluetooth) hands-free headset is nothing but the ones that are bundled with the entry level headphones. Check my sketch below.

- Rajesh Sundaram

Rat - ta - taa

dharma — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 09:18:36 +0000

Last month, I cleaned up a big mess of a Rat family. 6 kids and a couple. The couple escaped, but the kids lost luck. They were disposed. Lately for the past two weeks, the female mom started sneaking in and created two holes in the door yesterday night.

Unfortunately for her, Today morning, I spotted her hiding behind the window curtain. I didn’t waste a second. Quickly I closed the windows, door and pulled out an old telephone cable. Then the chase begun. She jumped, ran to the corners,tried to hide in darkest places. Then I got the idea. I grabbed the Mosquito repellent spray and sprayed on the rat when it was cornered. I guess it did some good. The rat lost it’s speed and I was able to whip the cable and slow her down. When she lost all energy and unable to walk, I took a polythene bag and captured her inside. Packed the bag firmly and walked out of the home. I then throw the bag into the street bin. Rat-Taa-taa!!!

I do not hate animals. But rats, is a different story.The amount of damage they did to my computer cables, TV box, the cartons and the doors!! That is totally unforgivable. No wonder.. people don’t like rats.

E-Bills instead of traditional Paper bills, by Phone companies - Good or Bad?

dharma — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 08:26:45 +0000

Recently I am receiving emails from phone service providers asking me to switch to eBills (aka Bills via Email). The main reason they say is “Save Trees, Save paper, Save Environment”. But I suspect the main reason is - to cut the cost on their front. Though the underlying idea is good. Why don’t they start with themselves? Why dont they cut short the usage of paper in their offices? Did you ever notice how much print materials like pamphlets, slips, banners, posters etc go waste, whenever they run a campaign ? If they can cut that cost, they can save millions.

Another problem I see when switching to EBills is - Address proof. Most of the BSNL bills are used as address proof and for reimbursment claims. Submitting a ebill (taken as a print out) is not accepted by the Income Tax dept. So I am not going to support the eBill, unless the I.T dept comes up with a policy to accept bills in the form or print-outs.

Instead of asking users to switch to eBills, let those corporates correct their own policy for using paper.

- Rajesh Sundaram

Using TrueSpace 3D for creating icons at Zoho

dharma — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 13:11:35 +0000

At Zoho, I am using Truespace 3D to create some complex icons. The version I am using is - Truespace 3 which is almost 4-5 years old. But that is not the matter. v3 is free to download and use. Recently, after acquired by Micorosoft, Truespace has announced that their latest Release 7 is completely free too. Though I have not installed it yet, I would give a shot in the near future.

When it comes to design icons, 3D software would save more time by helping to create perfect geometric objects with good lighting and angle. Below you can see one icon I created for a local presentation and another icon (retouched in photoshop) for “Customization” metaphor. I was able to do these two in 30 mins appx.

It requires a steep learning curve, but once mastered it is the CorelDraw of 3D. True to what it’s fans call. I’d definitely recommend Truespace to anyone who wish to use a free 3D software!

Download Truespace : www.caligari.com

Zoho CRM Update : Improved User Interface for “Change Owner”

dharma — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 06:54:49 +0000

One of the recent updates in Zoho CRM is the “Change / Choose Owner” User interface. The user interface can now filter users into Active Users, Deactivated users and All users. Also the search option is now tweaked and performs better than the earlier search. Attached is the screenshot.

- Rajesh Sundaram

Treating text ending with .com (also append) as links - Firefox Feature Request

dharma — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 07:12:42 +0000

If there are any features that I would like to see in Firefox is - The ability to select a word and tell the browser to attach a “.com” to it and go to that site. Many articles, writeups, text in the web mention some name (brands, site names) but without proper links. I am too lazy to copy the text and search in google and then click on a search result.

This feature should also cover the texts which are not given as links. My idea is - the feature should be intelligent enough to identify if the selected word/text ends with a “.com / net / org ” and then it should add an item in the “right-click” menu as shown in the picture. This would save some precious time for busy browsers.

- Rajesh