Diwali wishes from ABC Software!

Welcome to ABC Software! As with many things in life, the tenure with ABC is what one makes of it! We have had several unique personas with distinct idiosyncrasies having worked/still working for ABC. Then there was (is) he/she, who

·         Manages the Managers

·         Follows the law : ‘For every action there is an equivalent and opposite inaction’

·         Communicates only one-way

·         Sets up processes to set new policies from already set policies

·         Talks to only ‘n’ ABCians where ‘n’ equals to the number of years spent at ABC

·         Writes poems even for official communication

·         Would not read anything other than Software code for more than 15 seconds

·         Likes to meet (or) should we say, ‘likes Meetings’

·         Picks nicknames to go trendy with latest technology

·         Practices clothing style like late eighties; grooming style like late nineties and constantly wishes to be in late twenties

·         Has unique patent-pending algorithm in picking up colour and style of the outfit, for the day

·         Wrestles the way through to top title in most of the games

·         Looks at software systems only as subsystems

·         Believes ‘Marketing’ lies with    well...

·         Does not spell names Sebisfically Karrectly!

·         Talks only in numbers (or) should we say numbers the ‘Talks’ that are made in a day

·         Measures the smile and if gets flashy, immediately frowns

·         Works hard creating something funny and often times creates funny work

·         Practices the art of conversing in one syllables even for official communication
           An example excerpt:

Q: There is a bug in the system, XYZ.

A: O!

Q: Can you fix it?

A: Y?

Q: Who coded that?

A: I.

Q:  Can you fix it?

A: S.

Q: Where is your Team Leader?

A: T.

Q: I will tell your TL that you fixing the bug.

A: K.

·         Defies science with Decibel level – High

·         Defies science with Decibel level – Low

Welcome to ABC Software! You will be fine!

User Experience

What is User Experience? The phrase can be associated with any consumer product or service. You visit a hotel for a couple of days’ stay. How was your experience? You run into a restroom in an office building/in a restaurant for nature’s call. How was your experience? You feeling sick and visiting a doctor. How was your experience? (From registration, waiting, consultation, diagnosis, billing and the aftermath) You buy a latest model mobile phone or camera. How was your experience?

For Software, the phrase UX is becoming the new paradigm. Yesteryear’s definition of good looking UI does not hold good any more. UX is not about a great looking UI for your application. It is more about making sure the application works great too. What is ‘Great’? Everything. The success of providing a great User Experience with a Software application lies in details. The App has to be Easy on the eyes; Easy to Navigate; Easy to Learn and Easy to Use.

Let us analyse a story of a typical Software Application. Finance department of a retail giant, requires all the store managers in the chain to prepare and submit a monthly budget for the store to plan the financial needs of stores for every month. The CFO calls the CIO and tells him he needs the Budget App and will nominate a Point of Contact (POC) from the Finance department for all communications. CIO calls the Manager in-charge of ‘Applications for Store Managers’ and gives brief details of the request and the POC in Finance. After a plethora of meetings, discussions, reviews, approvals and demos, the software application finally gets installed for the store managers to access and prepare monthly budget.

The CFO calls CIO and thanks him and the two top guys congratulate each other and fix up a round of golf on green grass and an evening of cocktails to celebrate the success of the new system. The Grass is not always greener in the other side – The end users. By the time a Store Manager gets a printout of a monthly budget in the approved format, he would pretty much curse everyone in the world with particular attention to the programming team and the CFO. The store manager, of course, does not go to celebrate with cocktails. Instead, he hits the bar hard every night, during the budget week.

The moral of the story: The feedback for a software product/application has to be obtained from the end users of the App, who deals with the system at a transactional level day-in and day-out. Unfortunately, the voice of the customer is too feeble to reach up to the last programmer, who builds the system, due to several commercial, political and tactful reasons.

The paradigm is shifting and a lot of big software corporations are becoming user centric. There are focus groups set up for this thought process. The focus groups work relentlessly towards Usability Studies. The groups strive to represent the voice of the customer to the programmers. The Focus groups play the role of an end user and would not let an App out of the building if it fails to provide a greater UX. The report sent from the Focus Groups to the Programming Team will list the ‘Offences’ in the system, which will make the life of an end user very difficult, at least while they spent time with the system.

What do we all do herein programming community? It is really simple. There is a ton of literature available to read about UX. Also, by asking one simple question, we can change the way a system operates: “If I were to use the system for most of my work life, would I be comfortable?”

Ladies and gentlemen, the buzzword is: Intuitive. If the end user appreciates an application with the words - Intuitive and Slick, you can congratulate yourself for having built a great software application.

Left or Right

On a summer afternoon, two of us were playing a game of Ping Pong. The year and place are trivial to this discussion. I don’t know if it was after a ping or a pong, but the effect was BANG! The ball hit right on my right eye and a lot of tears left from both right and left. My challenger across the table quipped “Your right eye is not right!” Almost immediately I replied “But, my left eye is left”. Right there it was. A Pong for a Ping! Playing with what was left in my own right, I hit the ball left and right and left as a winner from the game.

All these years, whenever I write in English, I marvel at the power of the language with simple words such as Right and Left. Let us go back to the game. My challenger, a politician, was (and probably still is) a Rightist; Standing at the right side of the table, using the right techniques, playing the game right, right handed. Everything about him was Right. At the end of the game, having lost the game, he was left with a wry smile when I called him a left wing politician, directionally.

I am a Righty; not a Rightist. In Tennis, I like a righty who plays lefty. In music also, I like a righty who plays lefty. I am not sure if the lefties are left-brained and the righties are right-brained. Suddenly, I feel the fun element from the two words is missing in our dialogue. Let us bring in fictitious characters: Joe Right and John Left. Obviously, they both are Americans.

Joe Right and John Left have been friends since school days. Let us pick a super-bowl evening for the narration. Right and Left settled in front of the television at a friend’s place, with the super-bowl ritual of burgers, bites and a case of beers. The action-packed game had it all: Touch-downs, Field goals and striking passes. Joe and John got high and started a mini ballgame, right there in the hall. They were anything but upright and totally uptight. A pass from Joe hit the ceiling and bounced a couple of times, breaking the loosely fit coffee table in both sides. There was a lame joke from Joe on something about a coffee break or needing a coffee break which John summarily dismissed and disapproved of.

The game and the beer got over.  The reality sunk in. Joe and John, always team men, split the work half and half. They made an agreement that the table would be fixed prior to both leaving for their respective homes.  Joe would fix the right side of the table and John would fix whatever was left. Right, a loner, lived left and left alone. Left lived right and in his mind at least, lived right.

When the pact came to fixing the coffee table, Joe Right did the right and left. John Left left in a hurry without keeping his part of the bargain. So, on that very occasion, Right right right right, left and turned left and Left left left, left and turned right. Cheers J