New Horizons

Tracking Installed

2008-06-12T10:52:00.000+05:30

Google Analytics Tracking Installed

Three New Words in English

2008-01-18T19:58:00.000+05:30

Bucknor: (n) (adj)

1. Temporary blindness leading to missing out on the obvious. LaughingLaughing Laughing Laughing 2. To be at the wrong place at the wrong time.3. Situations leading to grave judgemental errors. Usage: I feel bucknored by my boss; Life often throws a bucknor at you.

Benson: (n) (adj)

1. Something that legitimises a severe bucknor.Usage: First they bucknored me and then they bensoned it! I am toast. Laughing Laughing Laughing LaughingAlso see bucknor

Ponting: (n) (adj)

1. A substance or entity or even a person of unquestionable integrity 2. Anact of uncivilised behaviour. [Also, pontingness (n)]

Characters Collection

2008-01-18T11:50:00.000+05:30

Dirty Series - 2

2008-01-07T10:14:00.000+05:30

Recently concluded 2nd Test between India and australia once again crossed all the limits. Ofcourse, the Australians & THEIR uMPIRES, DID EVERYTHING TO BEAT iNDIA, AND IT WAS VISIBLE TO entire world!

The leadres of Australia, Ricky Ponting & Andrew Symonds, and their bunch of few bad men did all that nobody even imagines in Gully Cricket. Cheating, Cheating, and more cheating, as time passed by!

Grow up Australians, what is going on. And after all these, Mr Ricky has guts to get angry when asked about the GREAT catch, which was'nt. Integrity, Ponting, you know the meaning of this word, or for that matter, do you know how many words or letters are there in Intigrity!!

Andrew Symonds, crying all over, mama, Bhajji called me MONKEY, Uh uh uh.....!!

And, big daddy, Ponting, said:
"Dont worry we will fix Bhajji, ok, now take this lollipop and go to boundry and remember, do not get into your MONKEY Act again, how many times should i tell you, that you r Symonds, pls, behave like Human!!

A bunch of Jokers formed a Consortium, callled International CrickettingJokers Consortium, their job is to ..... nobody knows their job!

The Umpires, oh oh!! Benson, you Son of a Ponting?

"Papa Ponting, is he out?"

Ponting, " Yes u son of ben, he is out"

We are Indians, big daddy, we will not walkout, but we will teach you people a lesson in your Home ground, before coming back. Do whatever dirty you can imagine.

All the best Team India, and thrash the Aussies and their belief that they can do whatever they want to!

India is with you! Even if you loose, we will Welcome you as our Heros!

God Bless India, God Bless Team India!

My Logo

2008-01-03T17:45:00.006+05:30

My Logo designed by me, who else....

Icons in Flash 8

2008-01-03T17:45:00.005+05:30

Set of Cool Icons made in Flash 8

Ad Banner in Flash

2008-01-03T17:45:00.003+05:30

Made a sleek ad banner interface in flash to display your key items and or advt online.

Maps in Flash

2008-01-03T17:45:00.002+05:30

Annotations for Maps or any other presentations can be made in flash using this stylish way.

Information Graphics

2008-01-03T17:45:00.001+05:30

DV

2008-01-03T17:45:00.000+05:30

Roads of Pune

2006-12-27T09:54:00.000+05:30

Ever imagined, your family member or dear ones going out of house and don't come back in the evening. And you keep your eyes on the roads searching them impatiently. No phone calls, no messages, ...! And the harsh truth comes as a shock that they met some accident and passed away, or seriously injured.

Pune, the IT city of India where almost hundreds of aspiring IT professionals storm in looking for their bright career, has become a haunting place. The companies here hire Taxis, thousands of taxis, for their employees pick up & drop. And, the drivers, usually illetrate, rude, ...you can imagine, drive reclessly on roads, killing on average 1 to 2 people every week!

And, the best part, if somebody comes in the trap, met accident, the companies ask the employee to contact the HR dept, where the victim learns about Travels dept, and finally the Travels dept direct them to the Taxi Operators, saying they cant do anything!

It has happened recently, yesterday night, and the eyewitness account of the crash is not easy to take, even in words, horrible.

Well, whats the government doing to stop these reckless driving! NOTHING!!

Well, we never expected anything from them (police) and the trend will go a long long way. Only way to cope up with this situations, is that dont allow dear ones to ride....hmmm thats tough to do, and practically yopu can only have fears of getting bad news in evening.

Thats tragic! Who ould call it an IT city of India, when your life has no guarantee when walking or drivin gon the roads of Pune.

I never imagined an IT city having this face, its sad to know!

Prashant Dubey
Pune

Australian Cricket Team Won ICC 2006 Trophy - But Discovered Their Pathetic Attitude while Receiving

2006-11-07T11:51:00.000+05:30

In the recently concluded ICC Championship, which was won by Australia, beating W.Indies by good margin, became an event, which will be remembered by all Indians as well as the gentlemen around the world in Bad Taste.

The Aussie skipper Ricky Ponting was desperate for Trophy, like a 3 yr old kid for chocolates! The trophy was to be presented by the chief of BCCI, Mr Sharad Pawar. It seemed Ponting will die if the trophy is not given to him in next few seconds. He (Ponting) tapped Mr Pawar, and by fingres asked Mr Pawar to hand over the Trophy & go away from the stage! And then, after he presented the trophy, another player, was seen pushing Pawar from the front of the stage!

Well, Austrailan Cricket team lacks discipline & other ettiquetes as they are trained to fight in cricket & not play! After all, everyone knows how Austrailia came into existance.

Grow up Australians!

Be little more responsible and play like gentlemen, not like your Ancestors! This is a game, have some respect for your seniors, else, the world will soon search another island to throw you guys there!

Drive Car - e - full - y

2005-09-26T10:52:00.000+05:30

Our lives are not worth ending on roadside.

As, you may not know how much others love you, and they wait for you. Similarly there are thousands of others on road for whom their loved ones are waiting. So, try not to hurt anyone and be careful.

Last night my brother met with an accident. And it all happened due to the person sitting next to him. He, thinking a truck is coming towards them, steered the car and it banged into stationary Truck. Well, by god's grace and blessings, he came out with a scratch, and the person who did this James Bond type stunt broke his hand.

And worst thing, he is so good at driving that Iam proud of him, for having such excellent control of car. And when such an incident happens, Its really unfortunate. Its a Miracle, done by God, who saved everyone. And ofcourse, the Car, he loves his car so much that I thanked the car for saving my bro and touched it as if she was living creature!

Thank you God, for avoiding an unfortunate news which would have had very deep impact on our family. Thank you God, be with us and with all such people who take care for others.

Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, Pradeep Dubey, Prashant Dubey, HDFC, HDFC Life Insuarance, HDFC Bank

Friends, lets make road a good and safe place by changing our driving habits. And have some reespect for others, be it a pedestrian, a mercedes or a truck.

Thank you for reading.

2005-09-14T18:19:00.000+05:30

Arbortext
AIGA
ASIST
BayCHI
CNet Builder.com
COMDEX
Compaq
Designing for User Experiences
Enterprise Computing Solutions
Enterprise Search Summit
Federal Reserve
Hewlett-Packard
Hypertext & Digital Libraries
IBM
Interaction Design Institute Ivrea
International Monetary Fund
Internet Librarian
Internet World
Intranets
KnowledgeNets
KM World
Microsoft
Online Information
Silicon Valley Web Guild
Society for Technical Comm.
Special Libraries Association
Swedish Assoc. of Info Specialists
University of Michigan
User Experience
User Interface
Vanguard
Web Design & Development
Yahoo!

2005-09-07T11:26:00.000+05:30

Hi Guys,

In case if someone needs a reference for MS Project,
below is a tutorial for All About MS Project. If you find it useful, do let me
know...

What is Project Management ?

To get the most out of Microsoft Project we need to first
understand some common terms because ambiguity can cause confusion later as we
move through how to use Microsoft Project.

Ambiguity is perhaps one of the greatest causes of failure of
projects. Ambiguity causes scope creep, missed deadlines, run-away costs,
under/over utilization of resources, and others. It's your job as project
manager to identify and eliminate ambiguities, otherwise your project plan is
nothing more than a guess.

Let's first look at what is and what is not a project.
We'll use the definition of project from the Project Management Institute, which
is:

A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a
unique product or service.

A project is consider temporary since once the projects
objectives are met, the project team will break-up and go onto other projects.
The goal of a project is to create something new, or unique.

Elements of Project Management

All projects have three basic elements: tasks, resources
and time. These are interrelated and any change in one has an effect on the
other two. This is one area where Microsoft Project excels. Whenever you make
any changes, the affect of those changes will become instantly visible through
Microsoft Project's graphical presentation of your project.

Think of tasks as individual pieces of work which need to be
done. Some typical tasks may include:

Reports to management
Pieces of code for an application
Project definition documents
Any small (or large) item that contributes to reaching the state goal of
the project

Resources are anything used to meet the stated goals of the project:

People
Machinery
Money

For time you originally start with an estimate (also know as a
guess) on how long it may take to reach the stated goal of the project. As the
project progresses, the time estimate becomes more solid as each piece of the
project is examined and a more firm estimate as to how long it'll take to
produce the individual pieces.

These three pieces are interrelated. If you think of the three
as a triangle, in order for the triangle to remain balanced, any change on one
side required changes on the other two. For example, if a new task is added to
the project, you'll need a resources to work on this new task, and the new
task may (or may not) affect the time side of the triangle .

It is within this area, the management of tasks, resources and
time, that Microsoft Project excels and will help you to successfully manage
your project...

Introduction to Microsoft MS Project 2000

Microsoft Project 2000 (along with Project 95) is perhaps one
of the most popular desktop project management tools available on the market
today.

While no tool can ensure the success or failure of a project,
knowing how to use the tools effectively can make your job easier.

Microsoft Project is a full-featured tool with many options
available to you as project manager. However it's this great flexibility and
size of Microsoft Project that can make it intimidating to use. Microsoft
Project assumes that you have a basic understanding of project management, so
we'll take a brief moment to review some of the basic knowledge of project
management you'll need in order to effectively use Microsoft Project and to run
your project.

Startup Microsoft Project

Microsoft Project is based off of the Microsoft Office model
and has many similarities to other Microsoft Office products. It uses the
standard Microsoft Office interface of menu's, toolbars and graphical icons to
accomplish most tasks common to managing a project with Microsoft Project.

When Microsoft Project starts, you'll see a screen similar to
the one below. Microsoft Project's screen is divided into three main areas: the
menu/toolbar area, the outlook style toolbar down the left side of the screen,
and the data area. The data area changes depending upon which task you are
doing. All toolbars and menus are also customizable.

To become familiar with Microsoft Project we'll now step
through the creation of a small project this will introduce the most commonly
used features of Microsoft Project.

Creating a New Project

To create a new project in Microsoft Project you can either click the 'New'
icon on the toolbar or select 'New' from the 'Files' menu. Unfortunately, the
two methods of creating a project do not behave the same. If you clicked the
'New' icon a new blank project will automatically be created for you. If you
selected the menu method, you will be presented with a dialog box like the one
below.

From the New dialog box you have the option of creating a new blank project
or from selecting from one of the predefined templates. Looking at the templates
can be helpful, especially if you are new to project management. Depending upon
the type of project you are undertaking, they typically follow the same pattern
and this pattern has been laid out for you in the project template. (They may
also help you to think of things you may have forgotten!)

As you can see, there are pre-built templates for construction, software
develop, to developing a new project or business. For this tutorial will start
with a Blank Project.

Project Properties

Once you have created a new project, the Project Information dialog will be
displayed. Lets look at the options of this dialog:

Start Date - This dropdown box displays the anticipated start date of the
project and defaults to the current date. Selecting the dropdowns arrow
displays a calendar for you to select the start date.
Finish date - This is disabled since the projects finish date will be
calculated from the tasks of the project. The default project scheduling model
used in Microsoft Project is to schedule from the projects start date.
Schedule From - The default project scheduling model used by Microsoft
Project is to schedule from the projects start date. Another common project
scheduling model is to start with the finish date and work backwards. This is
known as scheduling from the project end date. If you change to this method of
scheduling, the Finish date dropdown become active, allowing you to enter the
projects expected end date.
Calendar - Microsoft Project supports three types of calendars: standard,
24-hour, and Night Shift. Select the calendar appropriate to your project.
Click 'OK'.

Entering Task Information in Microsoft Project

Having just created a new project, your Microsoft Project screen should look
similar to the one below. Your project is now ready for you to start entering
your project information.

There are two basic methods for entering task information into Microsoft
Project. You can enter your tasks directly into the Gantt Chart view (the
default view, shown below), or you can double-click on a row in the tasks area
and the Tasks dialog will be displayed. Each method has it's strong points as
well as it's weak points.

If you have a list of tasks, entering them directly into the task area of the
Gantt Chart view is quickest. The Task dialog is more detailed, allowing you to
fill in items not available in the Gantt Chart view.

For the this tutorial we will use the creation of a new Project Management
Office as our example.

Entering Task Information in Microsoft Project - Continued

For this exercise we will use the task area of the Gantt view to enter our
tasks. Assuming you have a blank, new project, select the first row of the
project.

Project Office and press enter.
Scope and press enter.
Determine Project Office Scope and press tab, enter 3 days for the
duration and press enter. Press left arrow once.
Document high-level Project Office requirements including resources, press
tab, enter 2 day for the duration and press enter. Press left arrow once.
Justify Project Office via business model, press tab, enter 3 days for the
duration and press enter. Press left arrow once.
Secure Executive sponsorship, press tab, enter 2 days for the duration,
press enter and press left arrow once.
Scope Complete, press tab, enter 0.
Your screen should look like the one below.

As this point we haven't entered any of the tasks dependencies, recourses or
rolled anything up into major task headings; we'll do these next.

Note: Any tasks that is created without a duration is a milestone.

Creating Sub Tasks in Microsoft Project

To create sub-tasks, you need to move the tasks over to the right under the
tasks category. For example, Scope is a sub-task of Project Office and all the
other tasks listed below Scope are sub-tasks to Scope. So let's move things
around to represent this fact.

Click on row 2 to highlight the row. Once the row is selected click on the
arrow pointing right in the toolbar. Scope will shift right and Project Office
will change to bold and have a + symbol in front of it. These represent the
fact the Project Office has sub-tasks.
Click on row 3, and while holding the mouse button down, highlight the
other rows (3 - 7). Press the right arrow twice to move these tasks over to
make the sub-tasks of Scope. Your screen will not look like this...

You can also create sub-tasks by using the mouse. By placing the
cursor in the task field you want to make a sub-task you can click and drag the
task either left or right to move it to the appropriate task level.

Next we'll ad some predecessors to the tasks that we've defined so
far.

Creating Sub-Tasks in Microsoft Project - Continued

By using predecessors, Microsoft Project can show the sequence of
tasks. There are two ways to enter predecessors within a project and we'll cover
those here.

Select row four of the project.
Tab out past the duration field.
You should now see a number of fields:
- Start Date
- End Date
- Predecessors
- Resource Name
In the Predecessor field enter 3 and press enter.
On row 5 enter 4 in the predecessor field and press enter.
On row 6 enter 5 in the predecessor field and press enter.
Double click row 7 and the following dialog will be displayed.

This is the Task Information dialog and contains all the fields
associated with the task. There are a number of fields available in the Task
Information dialog that are not on the Task spreadsheet.

Click on the Predecessors tab.

The following dialog will be displayed

Click on 'Task Name' in the first row of the spreadsheet.
A drop-down dialog box will be displayed listing all the tasks
of the project.
Select 'Secure Executive Sponsorship' and press tab.

Your screen will now look like this:

Click 'OK' to close the dialog.

Your project will now look like the following:

Entering Resource Information in Microsoft Project

While we've entered a number of tasks and set the predecessors for these
tasks, we haven't yet assigned resources to the individual tasks of the project.
Before we can assign tasks to resources, we need to first create those resources
that will be responsible for completing the work. Microsoft Project allows you
to enter tasks without resources being associated with them since in most
instances, you will not know who will actually be doing a specific task until
later in the project.

To switch to the screen used to creating new resources, click on the
'Resource Sheet' from the left-hand side toolbar. Your screen will look similar
to the one below. Again there are two ways to enter resources into Microsoft
Project. You can use the resource spreadsheet of the resource sheet or you could
use the Resource Information dialog. We'll cover both methods of entering
resources into Project.

Note: If you create a resource and assign that resource to a task, the
resource can not be deleted from the project until all task associated with the
resource have been reassigned to another resource.

Creating Project Resources Using Spreadsheet in Microsoft Project

For our Project Office project we are going to create a number of resources
to carryout the work. We'll use both methods to create resources for our
project.

Select the first row of the resources spreadsheet and enter 'Corporate
Management' under the 'Resource Name' column.
Select 'Work' from the drop down dialog for the 'Type'.
Leave 'Material Label' blank.
Enter the letter C in the 'Initials' column.
Leave the rest of the columns at their default values.
Repeat the steps above for: Project Office Coordinator, Analyst, and
Developer, using the first letter for the 'Initials' column.

Your screen should look like the one below.

Creating Project Resources Using Dialog box in Microsoft Project

To create a resource using the Resource Information Dialog box, follow these
instructions:

Double-click on the fifth row of the Resource spreadsheet and you'll see a
dialog like the one below.
In the Resource name field, enter 'Project Office staff analyst.
Enter 'POA' in the Initials field.
Select 'Work' from the Resource type drop-down dialog box.
Click 'OK' to create the resource.

Your resource spreadsheet should now look like this:

Assigning Project Resources using Task Spreadsheet in Microsoft Project

Now that we have created some resources for our project, we can go back as
assign tasks to these resources. There are a number of ways to do this and we'll
cover the two most common. In this section we'll discuss using the Task
Spreadsheet of the 'Gantt View' of Microsoft Project.

Click on 'Gantt Chart' in the left-hand toolbar.
Select row 3 and tab to the end column marked 'Resources'.
From the drop-down dialog box, select 'Corporate Management'.
Repeat this for all other tasks in the project.
Since these tasks will have more than one resource assigned we'll need to
assign the other resources from the 'Task Information' dialog box.

Your project should now look like the following:

Assigning Project Resources using Task Information Dialog in Microsoft
Project

The quickest way to assign resources to a task is through the Task
spreadsheet of the 'Gantt Chart' view of your project. The only problem with
this method of entering resources is that you can only enter one resource for a
project from this area. In order to assign more than one resource to a project
you need to use the 'Task Information' dialog box. We'll walk through this
process here:

Double-click on line three of the task spreadsheet the dialog box shown
below will be displayed.

Click on the 'Resources' tab to display it. The dialog box will now look
like this.

Since we already entered 'Corporate Management' from the task spreadsheet,
it'll be displayed here.

Select the row below 'Corporate Management'.
A drop-down dialog box will be available.
Click the down arrow to open the dialog box.
Select 'Project Office Coordinator' from the drop-down list.
Now both Corporate Management and Project Office Coordinator will be shown
as resources assigned to the task.
Click 'OK'
Repeat for all the other sub-tasks of Scope in the project plan.

Note: Be careful, Microsoft Project will change the duration of a task
automatically when you assign more resources to a task. The assumption being
that it'll take less time with more resources.

Adjusting Your Calendar in Microsoft Project

Now that we have a basic project plan put together, we'll examine some of the
other features you'll need on a regular basis or those that can help you to spot
trouble in your project. One such area is the base calendar used by the project.
The default calendar has work-time scheduled every Monday - Friday 8AM - 5 PM,
52 weeks of the year.

To effectively calculate dates for items within your project, you will need
to modify the base calendar to include things like holidays, planned shutdowns,
etc. This is how you would make these adjustments:

Click on 'Tools' menu.
Select 'Change Work Time' from this menu and the following dialog will be
displayed:

With a copy of your companies holiday schedule, scroll through the
calendar until you find the correct month for a holiday.
Click on the day you wish to change, so that it's highlighted with a box
outline.
Then click 'Nonworking time' on the right-hand side of the dialog. This
day will now be marked as a non-workday and any tasks that fall on that date
will be updated automatically. You can also set a date to half a day by using
the Nondefault working time option.

Note: Every resource in your project has an individual calendar based off
the Standard calendar. You can update a resources calendar from the 'Resource
Information' dialog to enter things like vacation time, business trips,
etc.

Gantt Chart View

The Gantt chart is the most commonly used chart in project management. It
shows all the relationships between tasks, when tasks are expected to start,
who's assigned to a task, when the task is scheduled to end, etc. Because of
this, this chart can very quickly become large and unreadable. You can adjust
the items displayed on the Gantt chart or change the size, but these tend to
make it less easy to read and understand.

The Gantt chart for our small project is displayed below. There other view
that support other parts of project management and the other most commonly used
is the Network Diagram.

Network Diagram View in Microsoft Project

Another commonly used diagram in project management is what's called the
network diagram. Basically a network diagram shows all the relationships between
tasks. More importantly, the network diagram shows what is called 'Critical
Path' of a project. It is called the critical path because any changes to any of
the tasks on the critical path affect the outcome of the project. If a task on
the critical path takes longer than expected, the entire project will be late
because of it. A shrunken view of the network diagram for our small project is
shown below:

Task Usage View in Microsoft Project

The task usage view displays useful information about all the tasks in a
project. Through this view you can see how much time and money any task will
take. Once you have assigned an hourly rate to the different resources in your
project you can get an estimate to how much the project is going to take. The
Task Usage view can be modified to display a number of different pieces of
information.

The screen below shows the work effort and the estimated cost for each of the
tasks associated with our small project. The top line 'Project Office' contains
are rolled-up amount for the given day.

Resource Graph View in Microsoft Project

The resource graph, obtainable by clicking on the 'Resource Graph' on the
left-hand side toolbar, displays a graph for each resource defined in the
project. By using this graph you can spot resources that have been assigned too
much (over utilization) or too little (under utilization) tasks within the
project. One of the primary goals of a project manager is make sure that people
are being used at the optimal level of utilization. Over allocated resources
burnout and do not perform well over the life of the project; under allocated
resources are an added expense to the project since you're paying for their time
even if you don't keep them busy.

Project management is a constant juggling act and resource utilization is
just one of the many balls you must juggle. Microsoft Project makes is fairly
easy to spot resource utilization problems.

Microsoft Project has a number of built-in reports to help you monitor
different items within your project. The dialog box below display a few of the
standard categories of report that Microsoft Project has built into them. You
can also create your own custom reports to suit your needs, however, the most
commonly needed information is already available in the standard reports.

Conclusion

This has been a very quick overview of Microsoft Project and the portions of
it you'll need to get a project setup and running with it. There are whole books
dedicated to the topic of Microsoft Project and if you're going to be using it
frequently you may wish to pick one up. This tutorial has given you all you need
to get a quick start using Project. Even those who use Project daily can still
find things they didn't know in a book.

Warm regards,

Prashant Dubey
Technical Writer
Reliadat

Data Plug

2005-08-19T12:12:00.000+05:30

steps to promote

2005-08-03T12:47:00.000+05:30

The 5 key steps to promoting your website

Promoting your website can seem like a daunting, complicated
task. The truth of it is that it's not a trivial undertaking. But
with some well laid plans, you can be sure that you're leaving no
stone unturned and working toward the best possible results.

Step 1: Preparation

Prepare your website for the search engines

This is a critical phase where elements such as keyphrase
selection and web page optimization come into play. Whether you have
a website already or not, this is where you need to start. Your site
must be prepared and optimized to ensure that when the major search
engines and directories visit your site, they index it properly and
favourably.

Step 2: Popularity

Establish a network of incoming links from other sites

It is crucial that you establish plenty of quality, relevant
links to your site. This typically means approaching websites in
your industry (be they indirect competitors, vendors, suppliers or
directory owners) and asking for a link, or offering to exchange
links. Having a strong initial link popularity greatly increases the
chances that the major search engines will find you before you even
let them know you’re out there. During this phase you should also
consider purchasing pay-for-inclusion memberships at some of the
major directories. Although the costs can add up and typically need
to be renewed yearly, the links that they provide are often
extremely valuable.

Step 3: Broadcasting

Let the search engines and directories know about your site

This step is essentially web site submission. You should be
submitting not only your site, but all pages within your site to the
major search engines and directories. You can do this both manually
and automatically (if you have the tools). Getting listed with the
major players typically takes anywhere from 2 to 12 weeks. As such,
you should continue this step until all your pages are indexed on
all the search engines. But be careful: once a page is indexed,
don’t keeping submitting it to that search engine; your work there
is done.

Step 4: Advertising

Purchasing of targeted visitors across the web

This step involves elements such as pay-per-click campaigns,
newsletter ads, website ads, etc. Depending on your budget, this
step can be as expensive as you choose. So long as you invest in the
right programs and design your ad copy properly, you stand to make
an excellent return on your investment here.

Step 5: Monitoring

Keep an eye on your site’s standings

Often the most overlooked step, you need to be very vigilante of
how your site is performing in the eyes of the search engines. Have
your keyphrase rankings increased? Decreased? When? Why? Tracking
and charting your progress is extremely important to measuring the
effectiveness of any changes you make to your promotion campaign.

So now what?

Now that you’ve gone through the 5 key steps, it’s time to
repeat the process. Actually, once you complete a phase you
should never leave it alone. You should be addressing each of these
5 steps on an on-going basis.

Optimized pages become un-optimized the moment a search engine
changes its ranking algorithm; which, as any SEO specialist will
tell you, happens all too often and all too randomly.

Sites will drop their link to your site without letting you know,
or maybe add you and not tell you. Keep your ear to the ground on
this front to ensure that you’re capitalizing on any opportunities
and keeping your inbound link numbers high. You can also do some
optimization with your pay-for-inclusion listings, so take advantage
of that.

Pay-per-click advertising is a complete science unto itself, so
expect to spend plenty of time learning which keyphrases and ads
works, and which don't. Freshen up your ads to grab attention if
they're underperforming.

And finally, by tracking your progress you will ensure there are
no surprises. Well, there are sure to be surprises, but hopefully
you won’t find out about them two months after the fact.

Good luck!

New York

2005-07-28T11:19:00.000+05:30

ahmedabad

2005-07-26T10:44:00.000+05:30

Website Evaluation

2005-07-17T14:31:00.000+05:30

Content Organization
§ Site organization is acceptable, but is overwhelmed with the dynamic HTML presentation.
Navigation
§ There is no global navigation. It is impossible to get from one section of the site to another without going back to the home page.
§ Inconsistent placement of "home" button. Sometimes it appears at the bottom left of the frame, sometimes not. When on the careers home page, there is a box at the top left labeled "home." That box does not appear on any other pages. The user never knows what to expect.
§ Local navigation is inconsistently placed. In "Environment" within "Careers" navigation is by a series of boxes on the left of the active frame. At other times, the local nav is at the top of the frame.
§ Lack of consistent breadcrumb or pointer makes it difficult for the user to get an idea of where they are on the site.
Labeling
§ Inconsistent: Within the case study area, three pages are titled with a generic description of the client company. The fourth page is titled with a project description
§ Misleading: "Mission" leads to a fact sheet or "About Us" information, as well as "Mission." Note that the same label is used on two different levels of the hierarchy, in addition to the top-level "Mission" not indicating that the fact sheet information is included under it.
Usability
§ Changing illustrations on home page confuse the users as to their location within the site. It is not immediately clear that one is on the home page when the illustration is different than when one started.
§ Because of implementation using dynamic HTML, functionality is not optimized when using Netscape. For many pages, the global navigation items are lost below the fold.
§ The internal back button on the site does not always work.
§ On some pages, such as "Current Openings," the content grows to fit the entire frame; all local navigation items are lost.
§ The "Home" button at the top left does not always work.

Information Design

2005-07-13T18:39:00.000+05:30

The Information Design Lifecycle

Delivery to User

The delivery of information to the user should be done carefully - at the right time, to the right user, at the right time and at the right level of governance. This is critical to ensure that the right decisions are ultimately taken and implimented

Find Information

Where is information available? Who has it? How will it be used?
In this first stage we prepare to find information by learning about user and target audience - who are they, what are their activities, what kind of decisions they take, what information they need for the decisions, etc.
We then look at sources of information, and the quality and quantity of information that matches the needs of the user. It will also be necessary to look at the timeliness and trustworthiness of information necessary.
It is critical to remember that the information needs of the user may change over time and at different stages of the decision-making process.

Collate and Analyze

How can we match user needs with information available?
Information collected is matched with users by identifying the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats (commonly called the SWOT analysis methodology).
In this stage, the information is analyzed for the relative advantages it offers, the action it enables, the improvements can be implemented, the opportunities made available, and the obstacles faced.
At this stage, information is only comprehended and categorized for later use. This analysis is essentially non-judgmental and seeks to understand the context where the information is to be used.

Build Patterns

What are the interlinakages between the different pieces of information?
This is where the interlinkages between the different categories and pieces of informantion is identified. There are always problems-behind-problems (that is, a 'visible' problem that is actaully caused by another 'invisible' problem), and there are solutions-for-solutions (that is - solutions that lead to more solutions). The collected information should illustrate and relate to such problems and solutions.
The patterns of interlinkages between the different pieces of information highlight such cause-effect relationships. Flowcharts, framework and outlines are created to illustrate these relationships, and identify key points / themes that need to be emphasized. Pertinent information is hen used to flesh out the outline.

Feedback and Review

What enhancements can be envisaged to the info patterns?
A focus group created out of the end-users is created to review the information patterns created in the previous stage. This is important to make sure that the information collated meets the needs of the users.
It also enables channels of information flow to be created to ensure that timely and current information is delivered to the user continuously.
The focus group provides feedback and suggestions for improvement so that the cycle can be improved further.

Iteration

The information design cycle may be repeated several times iteratively, based on the feedback and review obtained from the focus group, until it meets the users needed requirements.
This is indeed a continual process where new information and changing needs of the user require further analyses and pattern building. This is done in close consultation with the focus group, or directly with the end-users themselves.

My Portfolio Site

2005-07-06T14:29:00.000+05:30

Usability Questions

2005-07-04T19:28:00.000+05:30

Hi

I was Interviewed by Dr Eric recently and the questions asked are compiled for you all.
Come up with answers if possible and lets share it!

- What is bad about drop-down boxes?

- What should be the error message in the following case? Its important that a user be at least 21 to become a member.

- How much space, in terms of percent, should be left to accommodate European languages?

- If a user enters 4,ooo (instead of 0, user enters alphabet o) as salary by mistake, what should be the error message?

- July 7, 2005 – submitted by Ravi Sharma of Mumbai, India

- What should be the best way to design any code for identification process of huge amount of products or materials, or anything?

What key points and care should be addressed while designing such a coding system.

Eric's response: There is SO much more to code design than most people realize. Here are some principles that pop to mind...

Keep the code as short as possible
Make Alpha, Numeric, or a mix depending on typing style (standing bank clerks use all numbers, as their hand is on the numeric keypad for example)
Leave out frequent confusions (like V and B for a code read over the phone)
If the code list is longer then five digits chunk it (123-121-9991)
For expert typists avoid using the same key twice in a row (it breaks up the keying pattern)
Consider a check digit to validate the entry

- What is your assessment about the branding treatment in the above shown website snapshot?

- Should there be help on an e-commerce site for providing help on how to shop?

- What is your assessment about this e-commerce site?

2005-06-24T19:20:00.000+05:30

Usability Guidelines

Guideline: Ensure that the website format meets
user expectations, especially related to navigation,
content, and organization.

Comments: It is important for designers to develop
an understanding of their users’ expectations
through task analyses and other research. Users can have expectations based
on their prior knowledge and past experience. One study found that users
acted on their own expectations even when there were indications on the
screen to counter those expectations.
The use of familiar formatting and navigation schemes makes it easier for users
to learn and remember the layout of a site. It’s best to assume that a certain
percentage of users will not use a website frequently enough to learn to use it
efficiently. Therefore, using familiar conventions works best.

Sources: Carroll, 1990; Detweiler and Omanson, 1996; Lynch and Horton, 2002;
Spool, et al., 1997; Wilson, 2000.

Guideline: Use all available resources to better
understand users’ requirements.

Comments: The greater the number of exchanges of information with potential users, the better the developers’ understanding of the users’ requirements. The more information that can be exchanged between developers and users, the higher the probability of having a successful

website. These could include customer support lines, customer surveys and interviews, bulletin boards, sales people, user groups, trade show experiences, focus groups, etc. Successful projects require at least four (and average five) different sources of information. Do not rely too heavily on user intermediaries.

Sources: Adkisson, 2002; Brinck, Gergle and Wood, 2002; Buller, et al., 2001; Coble, Karat and Kahn, 1997; Keil and Carmel, 1995; Norman, 1993; Osborn and Elliott, 2002; Ramey, 2000; Vora, 1998; Zimmerman, et al., 2002.

Guideline: Have several developers independently
propose designs and use the best elements from
each design.

Comments: Do not have individuals make design decisions by themselves or
rely on the ideas of a single designer. Most designers tend to adopt a
strategy that focuses on initial, satisfactory, but less than optimal, solutions.
Group discussions of design issues (brainstorming) do not lead to the best

solutions. The best approach is parallel design, where designers independently evaluate the design issues and propose solutions. Attempt to “saturate the design space” before selecting the ideal solution. The more varied and independent the ideas that are considered, the better the final product will be.

Sources: Ball, Evans and Dennis, 1994; Buller, et al., 2001; Macbeth, Moroney
and Biers, 2000; McGrew, 2001; Ovaska and Raiha, 1995; Zimmerman, et al.2002

Guideline: Use an appropriate page layout to
eliminate the need for users to scroll horizontally.

Comments: Horizontal scrolling is a slow and tedious way to view an entire
screen. Common page layouts including fluid and left-justified may require
some users to scroll horizontally if their monitor resolution or size is smaller
than that used by designers.

Sources: Bernard and Larsen, 2001; Lynch and Horton, 2002; Nielsen and
Ta h i r, 2002; Spyridakis, 2000; Williams, 2000.

Guideline: Use longer, scrolling pages when users
are reading for comprehension.

Comments: Make the trade off between paging and
scrolling by taking into consideration that retrieving
new linked pages introduces a delay that can

interrupt users’ thought processes. Scrolling allows readers to advance in the text without losing the context of the message as may occur when they are required to follow links. However, with pages that have fast loading times, there is no reliable difference between scrolling and paging when people are reading for comprehension. For example, one study showed that paging participants construct better mental representations of the text as a whole, and are better at remembering the main ideas and later locating relevant information on a page. In one study, paging was preferred by inexperienced users.

Sources: Byrne, John, et al., 1999; Campbell and Maglio, 1999; Piolat, Roussey
and Thunin, 1998; Schwarz, Beldie and Pastoor, 1983; Spool, et al., 1997;
Spyridakis, 2000.

What is Information Architecture?:
One definition of Information Architecture is "the organization, labelling and structuring of data for content-based applications such as websites."

This emerging field has become more prominent in recent years as websites have grown increasing complex and users demand more friendly navigation systems.

Information Architects organize content, such as text, labels, graphics, and shopping carts, so that users can understand the site’s content and do things faster on the site.

Have you ever asked yourself: “How do I find that page again?”

Well, that site could probably have used a spoonful of Information Architecture medicine.

The role of the ‘Information Architect’ is similar to a traditional Architect. For example, before building a house an Architect will create a blue-print, work with the builders, plasters, and electricians and oversee the construction.

Lack of ‘architectural planning’ in web development is very expensive as large portions of the site may need to be improved (i.e. totally re-written) to correct areas that were overlooked in the haste just to ‘get something out there’.

An Information Architect also gives the Financial Controllers a better grasp of costs and contingency figures; improvised site designs frequently run over budget.

Sites Goals

Companies that wish to develop a commercial website have specific business goals in mind. The Information Architect captures these areas (not unlike the business requirements phase) and circulates them to all team leaders.

Large-scale websites often use Market Research and Focus Group testing, the results of which become incorporated into the site development plan.

Pre-Production

Software tools such as Visio, Word, and PowerPoint are used to prepare the site structure, labels the content sections, and defining content into hierarchical groups.

To achieve all this, the Information Architects will:

• Interview the client and note their business priorities.

• Organize Focus Group tests.

• Make Competitive Analysis.

• Benchmark competitor sites.

• Examine functional requirements.

A design document is then prepared which highlights critical risks and success factors. This also involves mapping the site structure, organizing the content on pages, and designing navigation systems.

Project Management

During the development process, the Information Architect establishes key deliverables and milestones — usually in conjunction with the Project Manager — to assist the client and team leaders in keeping the project on track.

At each major stage, the client is sent mock-ups of the work in progress. It’s also essential to brief the client as the site develops to help them understand what they are paying for and what areas are in development.

Any presentations should be in line with the client's level of understanding. Most prefer to see diagrams on both paper and PC’s to see how the site will function.

Sites Layout

In defining the site layout, the following areas need to be covered:

1. Site Maps — flowchart the navigation and main content sections to illustrate how users navigate, e.g. from the Catalogue to the Shopping Cart.

2. Content Maps — identify the content appears for each page and how it cross-references other groups.

3. Page Schematics — the Graphic Designer illustrates the page layout and categorize the links, content, advertising space, and navigation on each page. Schematics also highlight priority and hierarchies.

4. Storyboarding and Prototyping — prepare mock-ups to demonstrate how the site will perform.

When clients fail to grasp the long-term value of planning, the Information Architect will explain the benefits of concentrating on this area before any coding begins—and the potential risks that may occur by avoiding such steps.

Website Evaluation

Before evaluating a website, you need to examine the following:

• Target audience — who will use the site

• Business goals — what are the site’s objectives and critical success factors

• Technical constraints — what technical requirement need to be examined

• Future plans — considerations for future expansion and scalability

The Information Architect is responsible for exploring the project’s goals and objectives — it's the client's responsibility to ask about costs, timeframes and contingency plans.

Information Gathering

Content needs to be gathered quickly. And as it could be stored in different file formats and media formats, it needs to be made ‘web compatible’ and also formatted for other web channels, such as WAP and DTV.

Information Organization

After designing the site structure and navigation system, you can map content to different sections. You also need to label content for cross-referencing in databases and file sharing. Well-organized content enables the user to find things quickly and encourage them to stay on your site.
Use the 3 Click Test — if it takes more than 3 clicks to find something, design your navigation paths again.

Communicate Goals

Once you have gathered the content—or at least sufficient content to start—begin refining the content groups.

Every section requires specific content. Each of these groups needs to have the correct content and cross-references to other relevant groups. Refine the groups to get an equal distribution of content across all sections, so that the site is not over-populated in some sections and ‘under construction’ in others.

Divide large content groups into sub-groups. In this way, users can retrieve data swiftly and will not get lost is a sea of links!

Combining Visual Design and Content

Remember, visitors want three things on your site:

• Fast downloads

• High-quality content

• Ease of use

Your content should drive the site. Graphics enhance the content, not replace it. The exception is probably entertainment sites where content and imagery are very closely tied together.

During the design phase, keep returning to these Big Three mentioned above.
Successful websites provide as much information as possible with the least clicks. Select the color schemes in accordance with the company’s branding guidelines and business goals.

Future of Information Architecture
Information Architecture will play an increasingly important role in the success of large-scale websites, intranets and e-libraries. As more content gets produced, it needs to be labelled correctly, and structured for rapid access by users with different levels of experience.

Usability Resources

2005-06-23T19:44:00.000+05:30

Usability Resources

The ultimate all-under-one-roof resource to Usability & standards.

http://usability.gov/

What is usability? Why is usability important? How much does it cost? Planning Data collection Prototype development Usability testing Web site promotion Lessons learned from Web designs/redesigns Usability University Search engine statistics . . . .

And much more..... visit now!

2005-06-22T12:10:00.000+05:30

This is my certificate for the test in Human Factors by Federal Aviation Administration
Prashant Dubey

2005-06-20T19:38:00.000+05:30

fusion
Prashant Dubey

UI Design

2005-06-20T19:23:00.000+05:30

If the user can't find it, it's not there!

It is frequently said that navigation is 80% of good usability. I've often wondered what that means. What are the parameters that make a site navigable? What specifically do I need to get right to automatically have it be 80% good?

User-centered Web designers answer this question reflexively. Good navigation means good information architecture. Good information architecture means having a hierarchical structure and the right labels. Having the right structure means deriving the hierarchy that reflects users' mental organization of the information. Using the right labels means ignoring the organization's (branded) terms for things and adopting the users' vocabulary for tokens and categories.
These two parameters – structure and labels – are asserted to be as independent and complimentary. Neither is individually sufficient to trigger that 80% usability threshold. You have to get both right.

2005-06-18T17:43:00.000+05:30

FUSION, the new CD-ROM for DESIGNERS. Order NOW!

Unique Product

2005-06-17T19:43:00.000+05:30

Friends,

Iam announcing one exciting thing, I had been waiting for last one year for this day.

Brand New CD-ROM with full of resources, tutorials, stock images, stock footage, pdf files created by professional designers, ...and lot lot lot more!!

So, sounds Mouth Watering, for all designers,..... yes, it is mouth watering offer!!!

All these things in One Single CD-ROM!! Howsthat possible?!?!

Well, we have organized and sorted out all the useful items and then compiled keeping usefull-ness of the items. And, wherever requierd, we clubbed together all the items making them one.

Another, good feature, that we used Macromedia Flashpaper Extensively for documenting entire packag. And, I need not say about features of flash paper! Its so compressed,...u dont even require zipppp!!!

So, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR!!!

Just Send Me a Request, click here, RIGHT NOWWWW, and I will send you a detailed CATALOG to have a look at the PRODUCT. Once you are done, let me know, the CD Packaged, will be Sent to YOU by Courier, the very next day!

Payments can be made directly via credit card or by check, you can mail to my postal address!

KEEP WATCHING THIS SPACE.....COMING SOOOOON ..... MORE EXCITING DEALS!!!!

Book

2005-06-16T20:19:00.000+05:30

My True Colors ::: An Encounter with COLORS

2005-06-16T18:57:00.000+05:30

Experimental Website : Futuristic

2005-06-16T18:53:00.000+05:30

LOGOS Designed by ME!

2005-06-16T18:30:00.000+05:30

Programs on My Computer

2005-06-16T17:23:00.000+05:30

Abstract

2005-06-15T19:19:00.000+05:30

My Portfolio

2005-06-15T18:53:00.000+05:30

Guys,

Know more about me and my work.

Below are some links designed by me, alone!!

www.astegic.com

www.intransitionpartners.com

www.nkproteins.com

www.chaseinfotech.com

Happy browsing....and do not forget to write, whatever you want!

Take care!

Portfolio

2005-06-15T12:10:00.000+05:30

Friends,

Take some time out and relax, just visit, http://prashantdubey.deviantart.com/gallery/

Yes, your guess is right, its my Portfolio Web site. Browse through it and get INSPIRED!

Happy Browsing!!

Colors

2005-06-15T11:27:00.000+05:30

Folks,

A small and well compiled guide to colors. http://www.webwhirlers.com/colors/index.asp
Yes, a good and everything at one place whatever you want to know about colors. I liked this site and recommend people out there, do visit!

True Colors!

My Favourite Usability Reference Site

2005-06-15T11:16:00.000+05:30

Guys,

One place where I get everything about Usability solutions, is none other but, Human Factors International. (www.humanfactors.com). Founded by Dr Erick, this site has lot of resources and high quality advices by Dr Erick himself, is something you dont find everywhere.

Great site with great content!

Do visit once, Iam sire you will visit daily!!

Happy Usability!

Docs

2005-06-14T18:34:00.000+05:30

Docs in the Real World

In two recent consulting projects, we worked with online documentation developers who wanted to understand the problems users encountered and how their documentation helped solve those problems. To find out, we went and observed users in their own work environments. Although the clients and their software differ significantly, we found similar issues.

Both development teams initially had specific things they wanted to know about how people used the documentation, such as whether the structure and organization made sense to users, and how often users went to the wrong place first.

By watching users in their own workplace, we found issues that we would never have seen in a usability lab. These observations revealed many larger issues surrounding the use of the documentation.

We Are Not Alone

For example, neither team expected to see the variety and volume of other resources that "compete" with the official documentation. These included such diverse sources as co-workers, including cubicle-mates and the internal help-desk, users’ own notes, web sites, training materials, online news, and team meetings.

It surprised both teams to learn how much users relied on these competing forms of information. They found that the most successful users had the most resources available and knew when to use each one. No user relied exclusively on the online documentation.

The teams realized that this competition wasn’t always a problem. For example, users at one company benefited by having a printed list of field codes for the mainframe; this information never changed and users often needed it quickly. (It surprised this team to learn how important the mainframe procedures were: the company was phasing out the mainframe, so the team hadn’t focused on supporting it.) In contrast, frequently updated sources such as printed price schedules quickly became obsolete and many users still had old ones.

Therefore, this team abandoned its original assumption that it had to document everything in one online source, and decided to look for the most effective way to convey each type of information. They realized they needed to coordinate with the training department on how to present the information, including instruction on using each of the available resources.

Trust-Breakers

We repeatedly observed users avoiding documentation because they’d learned not to trust it. We saw many reasons for this loss of trust, some of them seemingly trivial.

Every Error Counts

Even small inaccuracies damaged the confidence of some users. This was more likely with users who didn’t know how to work around the problem. For example, users were stopped in their tracks when the online procedures told them to press Enter — but neglected to tell them they had to press it twice.

Many of these users were not proficient with computers, so even this small error was enough to make them abandon the documentation and call the help desk. In contrast, errors in documented policy didn’t affect trust much, because the support reps usually had more proficiency with the policies — at least a general idea of what the policy was supposed to be — and could figure out what to tell the customer.

The Buck Stops Here

Users don’t care where the problem lies: they don’t recognize that online help involves different pieces from different sources. Although some problems were beyond the doc team’s control, such as a bookmarks that didn’t work or a bug in Microsoft’s help engine, they still affect the users’ perception of the documentation — and their willingness to use it.

Fixing Broken Trust

It’s easy to break trust, and difficult to restore it. Once they’re burned by the docs, users typically won’t look there again. Unfortunately, this behavior can persist even after developers fix a problem. For example, although one team corrected an error that appeared in Version 2.0 of the docs, users still didn’t try to use it in Version 4.0. No one had told them that the error was gone.

When trust takes a beating, it’s hard to know the effect. After a bad experience, users may be willing to use other parts of the doc — and sometimes are not. Our observations showed us that the development team needs a concerted, proactive marketing effort to restore broken trust.
Trust isn’t an all-or-nothing thing. It’s built up slowly by successful experiences, and quickly eroded by disappointments. One team had translated the documentation into English from its original German — but unintentionally left pockets of German. Users who encountered German immediately stopped looking for the answer (getting German usually meant they were in the wrong place). Every time they encountered German, users were less likely to rely on the rest of the documentation.

Trust and Communication

One important element of building trust is the way the documentation team handles feedback. One team had an internal feed-back line to let users report errors and request changes. But the team was understaffed, so users rarely got a response, even an acknowledgment. As a result, users became reluctant to report problems.
The team realized it needed to put a response system in place — even if users just got a quick generic thank-you — before it could expect users to report problems.

Speed Is Relative

Users sometimes avoided documentation if they felt that it took too long to use. Actual speed, the measurable time it takes to get the answer, often wasn’t a problem. Instead, perceived lack of speed, how long users think the process will take, prevented users from using the docs. And what is "acceptable" varies from user to user, even from situation to situation: with an irate customer on the line, seconds can seem like hours.

In one project, we saw an interesting Catch-22: support reps didn’t look up anything in the online documentation unless they already knew where to find it. But they never learned where the information was unless they spent time using the docs. This perception of slow access speed wasn’t caused by poor organization of the documentation, but by the sheer volume of information, which made the online documentation daunting to the uninitiated.

On the other hand, this team was pleased that users generally could find things, and that users looked in the wrong place far less often than they’d feared. So, instead of launching a reorganization, the team proposed some other changes. These included getting the management to give reps off-phone time to do research (difficult during busy season), having managers and help-desk staff encourage reps to look things up first, and devoting more training time to practice sessions with the online documentation.

Sell, Sell, Sell

The documentation can still fail, even if it’s as usable as possible. Just because you’ve built it doesn’t mean they will come. We saw a clear pattern: users generally didn’t know about new features after they’d been trained.

It amazed both teams when they discovered how many users didn’t know about some basic features. For example, one team learned that no one had trained users to press F1 to get help. (Users got very excited when we showed them this trick!)

The other team found that users never went to the tutorials or used the Back feature — which the team had spent lots of time developing — because the team had never told the users about them.

These findings initially discouraged the teams, until they saw it as a "marketing" problem: determining what the messages they wanted to convey to users about the documentation, and then finding the appropriate channels.

After seeking feedback from successful reps, one team learned that the most appropriate and effective marketing message was something like: "The online documentation is huge and overwhelming at first. But if you invest some effort in learning it, it will pay off big, making you more proficient in the job skills you’re rewarded for."

To spread this message, the team decided that managers and the training department provided the best communication channels.

It Helped to Watch Users

Both teams learned that the documentation was only part of the picture of how people do their work.Perfect documents don’t help users succeed unless the team accounts for all these other factors. Because they made these site visits, the teams came up with some changes that showed great promise for improving users’ success. •

2005-06-14T18:17:00.000+05:30

Testing the Three-Click Rule

In a recent client meeting, a high-ranking executive told us that every piece of content should take no more than three clicks to access. We knew exactly what he was talking about: we've heard the Three-Click Rule many times before. This unquestioned rule of web design has been around nearly as long as the web itself.

On the surface, the Three-Click Rule makes sense. If users can't find what they're looking for within three clicks, they're likely to get frustrated and leave the site.

Many of us have the frustration of endless searching ourselves. We go to a site, click through various pages of content, and end up ready to quit. In one of our studies, a perplexed user threw up her arms and pronounced, "I should be able to find everything on a site in just three-clicks!"

The Three-Click Rule directly addresses this frustration, acknowledging a user's desire for fast gratification and the threat that a competitor's content is only a click away.

Many have written about the Three-Click Rule. For instance, Jeffrey Zeldman, the influential web designer, wrote about the Three-Click Rule in his popular book, Taking Your Talent to the Web. He writes that the Three-Click Rule is "based on the way people use the Web" and "the rule can help you create sites with intuitive, logical hierarchical structures".

In our own research, we've seen evidence that data about clicking helps us recognize problems on a site. For example, in one e-commerce study, we found that the more pages users visited (more clicks), the less they bought. (See the article, Strategies for Categorizing Categories). What we noticed in that study, however, was that users who were clicking the "Back" button multiple times were the ones who were failing. So we weren't sure whether the number of clicks mattered, or if it was something else that caused them to fail.

Applying the Three-Click Rule leads to a number of design suggestions, such as putting global navigation on every page and making a navigation hierarchy shallow and wide. While these suggestions seem a natural extension of the Three-Click Rule, they assume the rule is worth following. After hearing about the rule for many years and having it as a requirement in some client projects, we decided to find out if the rule was true.

Do Users Really Leave After Three Clicks?

If the origins of the Three-Click Rule come from actual user behavior, then we should see a relationship between a user's success at finding the content they're seeking and the number of pages they visit.

To see if we could find this kind of relationship, we looked at data from a recent study of 44 users attempting 620 tasks. We counted the clicks of every task, whether the user succeeded or failed at finding their desired content. We analyzed more than 8,000 clicks!

In trying to complete the tasks, some users visited as many as 25 pages before they ended their task and others only visited two or three pages before stopping. If the Three-Click Rule came from data, we would certainly see it with this wide variation in the number of pages they visited.
As we study our data, the rule tells us we should see users dropping off after hitting the third page, leaving before they have a chance to succeed. Those tasks that took as many as 25 clicks would be unsuccessful, with the majority of successful tasks falling somewhere close to three clicks in length.

Users Kept Clicking

If there is a scientific basis to the Three-Click Rule, we couldn't find it in our data. Our analysis left us without any correlation between the number of times users clicked and their success in finding the content they sought.

Our analysis showed that there wasn't any more likelihood of a user quitting after three clicks than after 12 clicks. When we compared the successful tasks to the unsuccessful ones, we found no differences in the distributions of tasks lengths. Hardly anybody gave up after three clicks.
According to the Three-Click Rule, most people give up after three clicks. However, in our study, users often kept going, some as many as 25 clicks. According to our data, the Three-Clicks Rule is just a myth.

In this chart, we should've seen the majority of successful clickstreams ending around three clicks. However, for both successful and unsuccessful clickstreams, we see that it isn't until 15 clicks that we see 80% of our tasks completed. Successful clickstreams have the same distribution as unsuccessful clickstreams -- the number of clicks doesn't predict task success or failure.

The failure to find task data to support the Three-Click Rule made us rethink the problem. Could task success and failure be the wrong way to look at it? Maybe everyone believes in the rule because it's frustrating to keep clicking beyond the third page? We decided to look at the problem from a different angle.

What about Satisfied Users?

If we looked at the tasks that were dramatically longer than three clicks, do we see a drop in the satisfaction of the users? At the end of each of the 620 tasks, we had asked users to rate how satisfied they were with the site for that task. Again, there was a wide variety of answers -- sometimes users were very satisfied, other times they were completely unsatisfied. Did these ratings correlate with the number of clicks?

After analyzing the satisfaction data, we still found no evidence for the Three-Click Rule. When we looked at the percentage of users who were unsatisfied, our data showed there was little variation (between 46% and 61%) between different lengths of clickstreams. Fewer clicks do not make more satisfied users.

Users weren't any more satisfied with shorter clickstreams than they were with longer clickstreams. The satisfaction of users doesn't depend on the number of clicks.

Implications of User Frustration

In our studies, users complain about how long it takes to find things all the time. This is one way that users vocalize their frustration. They tell us that if they could only reduce the number of frustrating clicks the site would be better.

However, these complaints aren't actually about the clicks. They are really complaints about failing to find something. When users find what they want they don't complain about number of clicks.

We see this phenomenon quite often: users complain about a symptom and not the real problem that caused it. They want to explain why they are failing, and in this particular case, one of their initial thoughts is that they are clicking too much.

A Misdirected but Well-Intentioned Rule

The Three-Click Rule isn't completely bad. People talk about it with users in mind, even executives who have never designed a web site. The rule may help designers focus on the information that users need and may help them create better web sites. These are admirable qualities.

We can't be overly critical of a rule that has the effect of helping designers keep their focus on users and their needs. However, the Three-Click Rule does not focus on the real problem. The number of clicks isn't what is important to users, but whether or not they're successful at finding what they're seeking. •

Documentation

2005-06-14T18:13:00.000+05:30

Six Slick Tests for Docs and Help

Usability testing isn’t just for software and web sites. Testing documentation can ensure that it includes — and accurately conveys — all the information users expect and need.

Testing gives you accurate information on how well your documentation and Help work. It can even uncover problems that are better solved by changing the interface.

As with most parts of the development, it’s easier and less expensive to find and correct doc problems early in the process, so we try to test as soon as possible.
Choosing a method depends on what you want to learn, how much time you have, and where your greatest risks are.

1. Incredibly Intelligent Help
This technique lets you discover what information users actually need, before you’ve written anything.
We bring in test participants as soon as we have a version of the product that will let users do some of the tasks they’d do in the real world. This may be well before we’ve written the documentation, but this isn’t a problem because a member of the development team simulates the documentation.
The incredibly intelligent part comes in when users get stuck or seem confused. At this point, the person simulating the docs asks, "What is your question right now?" When the user replies, the Help person provides a verbal clue, but gives as small a piece of information as possible. If this isn’t enough, the user can ask another question.
By giving information only a bit at a time, we can find out exactly which piece is most important to the user. Knowing this helps teams provide appropriate documentation — not too much, not too little — or, better yet, to fix the interface itself.

2. Index Tests
You can determine whether users can get to the right topic in your index by having them work with the draft index. You can even test the index before you’ve written the documentation.
To test the index, we show users screen shots from the product and ask them to write down the first three terms they’d look up to find more information. This test lets you look inside users’ heads and learn some of the terms they use — and expect to see. We write down all the terms they use; they could be words we’ve omitted or not referenced. The more of these we include, the better the index will work.

3. Summary Tests
By testing how well users’ comprehend conceptual material, you’ll know how successfully you’re communicating the information.
We ask users to read a section or examine a picture in the docs, then ask them to describe the three main points this element is trying to convey. (You should already know what you expect them to be!) If the users’ answers match yours, you’re probably getting your information across; if not, you may have some work to do.

4. Procedural Tests
This is a good way to test how accurately you’ve written the procedural details of your docs.
We give users the documentation or Help, asking them to read a specific page or topic and then work with the software to complete the procedure this section describes.
We note where they have problems, where they get confused, or where steps are missing. Then we make the necessary changes in the next draft.

5. Lookup Tests
Lookup tests demonstrate if the docs or Help include the necessary information — and if users can get to the right topic and use it. They also let you find the users’ biggest unanswered question.
To do a lookup test, we give users questions to answer or tasks to complete and see if the draft documentation helps them succeed. For example, when testing the documentation for a video product, we told users, "The picture you’re getting isn’t as clear as you’d like. Use the documentation and online help to find out what’s wrong and how to fix it."
After conducting lookup tests, some teams have changed from printed to online help (or vice versa), added index entries, or reorganized the information.

6. Rose in the Thorns Tests
It can be enlightening — and fascinating — to discover what experienced users don’t know about a product. To do this, we’ve recently started experimenting with the Rose in the Thorns test.
We ask experienced users to look through the documentation or Help until they find information about features they didn’t know before.
Then we ask them if this new information is valuable to them. If there are important features users don’t know about, we work with the interface designers to communicate them better.

Tips for Success

Three things help ensure successful tests of docs and help:

These tests work best with a couple of users at a time.
This increases the likelihood of brainstorming and lets us collect lots of information or keywords at once.
We try to avoid product-specific terms in the task instructions.
After the tests, we discuss with the team what we’ve seen and decide on next steps — including changes to the docs or more testing.

Technical Writer

2005-06-14T17:41:00.000+05:30

The difference between technical writer and a designer has been blurred over a time period.