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    <title>chibangalore</title>
    <link>http://chibangalore.mypublicsquare.com/</link>
    <pubDate>Sun, 18 Nov 2007 09:22:15 GMT</pubDate>
    <description>Stories from chibangalore</description>
    <item>
      <title>Report: World Usability Day 2007 - Bangalore</title>
      <link>http://chibangalore.mypublicsquare.com/view/report-world</link>
      <guid>http://chibangalore.mypublicsquare.com/view/report-world</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="/files/chibangalore/report-world/Logo_WUD2007_op.jpg" width="400" height="76" alt="Logo_WUD2007_op.jpg" /&gt;&lt;br&gt; November 5th and over 120 designers, technologists, usability professionals and public attendees gathered at the &lt;span class="caps"&gt;NIAS&lt;/span&gt; Auditorium at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. The event: World Usability Day, which was founded to ensure that the services and products important to life are easier to access and simpler to use. Organized and supported by  &lt;span class="caps"&gt;CHI&lt;/span&gt; Bangalore, &lt;span class="caps"&gt;UPA&lt;/span&gt; Bangalore, leading usability companies, and usability enthusiasts, the event focused on Healthcare, Education, and Government Services and other public services and utilities that touch our lives everyday. This local event was sponsored by Cisco, Google and Human Factors International.&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2355/1902672791_a9d4dd5116_m.jpg" alt="WUD  Event"&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The event kicked off with an introduction to the World Usability Day. The five-hour long event included talks and presentations by experts in the field, the results of usability testing of a public services website, and a very engaging design workshop.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;font color="#669900"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Talks and Presentations&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
	&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2334/1902293257_b115d676ca_m.jpg" alt="Dr. Girish Prabhu" &gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Dr. Girish Prabhu&lt;/strong&gt;, director for design research and innovation for Asia in Intel&amp;#8217;s emerging markets platform group, shared key perspectives on the design of the Community PC. He highlighted the importance of understanding stakeholder needs and conducting ethnographic studies while designing products, the lack of which resulted in the failure of the Community PC.&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2374/1903153618_565b9b5f15_m.jpg" alt="Prof. M.P Ranjan" &gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Prof. M.P. Ranjan&lt;/strong&gt;, member of the Faculty at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad (NID), India, and Chair of the Task Force on GeoVisualization set up by the Government of India spoke about how design is about real world contact and the need for rethinking so that design has social equity. His presentation titled Towards an Accessible World &#8211; Opportunity for Designers also spoke about how designers should cater to each individual, since each individual&amp;#8217;s needs are specific and different.&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2219/1903513978_15b40ec753_m.jpg" alt="Sean" &gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sean Blagsvedt, &lt;span class="caps"&gt;CEO&lt;/span&gt; of Babajob.com&lt;/strong&gt;, spoke about how an innovation can fight poverty in a scalable fashion. His presentation also covered on the &lt;span class="caps"&gt;HCI&lt;/span&gt; aspects of the site and how it helped in reaching out to non-computer literate users.&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2089/1902711319_3dcf3582df_m.jpg" alt="Dr. Washington" &gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Dr Reynold Washington&lt;/strong&gt;, the Director &lt;span class="caps"&gt;STI&lt;/span&gt;, HIV Care and Surveillance at Karnataka Health Promotion Trust (KHPT) and Gururaj H, Sr. Officer at &lt;span class="caps"&gt;KHPT&lt;/span&gt; highlighted the various initiatives undertaken by the &lt;span class="caps"&gt;KHPT&lt;/span&gt; to make a positive impact on the health of populations in India. Sanctioned by the Government of Karnataka, with the University of Manitoba, Canada as the implementing agency, &lt;span class="caps"&gt;KHPT&lt;/span&gt;, through research and innovation, training, and capacity building, aims to develop better technological strategies towards &lt;span class="caps"&gt;HIV&lt;/span&gt; prevention, care and support.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;font color="#669900"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Acid Test Results&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
	&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2257/1903120058_e77811cd0a_m.jpg" alt="Sarit Arora" &gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sarit Arora from Human Factors International (HFI)&lt;/strong&gt; presented the results of usability testing conducted on a public website, the &lt;span class="caps"&gt;IRCTC&lt;/span&gt; site of the Indian Railways. The key results of this test were that while most people found the service useful, they were frustrated using the site. Usability issues faced by the test participants were effectively shown in the form of videos to the audience.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;font color="#669900"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Design Workshop on Key Public Service Scenarios&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
	&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2230/1902629815_1a0ee96ed5_m.jpg" alt="workshop" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;A design workshop was conducted in which the audience enthusiastically participated. Split into teams, the participants were given public service scenarios and a problem statement. The public services scenarios were on the following themes- Designing mobile phone for the illiterate population, healthcare records and design for the elderly.&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2038/1903361148_f466f6b9a3_m.jpg" alt="workshop" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;The teams had to then brainstorm and design a solution within the specified time frame of 30 minutes. The solution then was presented to a panel of judges in a two minute presentation. The workshop saw a buzz of activity, with participants excitedly working together towards one common goal &#8211; to design the best solution. The results were announced at the end of the day and prizes presented to the top three solutions. Workshop designs will be posted on the &lt;a href="http://hcibangalore.pbwiki.com/World-Usability-Day%2C-Bangalore%2C-2007"&gt; event wiki &lt;/a&gt;for further discussions.&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;To see more photos of the Bangalore Event, see this flickr set &lt;a href="http://flickr.com/photos/sarit_arora/sets/72157602781236910/"&gt; World Usability Day Bangalore 2007&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;Also read Prof. Ranjan&amp;#8217;s blog post on the World Usability Day 2007 Bangalore&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2007/11/world-usability-day-at-bangalore.html"&gt; Design for India &amp;#8211; Prof. Ranjan&amp;#8217;s Blog&lt;a&gt;. You can also download the presentation that he gave at the event.&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;Event posts for all the events around the world can be see at the &lt;a href="http://build.exclusiveconcepts.com/WUD-Blog/"&gt;World Usability Day community site&lt;/a&gt;. The World Usability Day Community is a place to meet, share and interact with experts, promoters, and supporters of Usability from around the world. This site is available to everyone throughout the year, not just on World Usability Day. Check out the site and get involved.&lt;/p&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Sun, 18 Nov 2007 09:22:15 GMT</pubDate>
      <author></author>
      <category>Events</category>
      <category>usability</category>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>World Usability Day 2007 - Bangalore</title>
      <link>http://chibangalore.mypublicsquare.com/view/world-usability-day</link>
      <guid>http://chibangalore.mypublicsquare.com/view/world-usability-day</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="/files/chibangalore/world-usability-day/Logo_WUD2007_op.jpg" width="400" height="76" alt="World Usability Day" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;p&gt;World Usability Day was founded to ensure that the services and products important to life are easier to access and simpler to use. &lt;span class="caps"&gt;WUD&lt;/span&gt; focuses on raising awareness and visibility of usability and user centered design and is organized every year by volunteers and local event coordinators from around the world. &lt;br /&gt;Whether usability professionals or just enthusiastic (or frustrated) users, each participant makes a contribution to &amp;#8220;making life easy&amp;#8221;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt; &lt;font color="#3399CC"&gt;Usability and its Impact in Making Better Healthcare &amp;#38; Public  Services   &#8211; Bangalore, November 05, 2007&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;On Nov 5, 2007, World Usability Day will be hosted at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. The event is being organized and supported by &lt;span class="caps"&gt;UPA&lt;/span&gt; Bangalore, &lt;span class="caps"&gt;CHI&lt;/span&gt; Bangalore, leading usability companies, and usability enthusiasts. The event will include designers, technologists, business professionals and is open to public. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;WUD&lt;/span&gt; Bangalore 2007 will focus on applying &amp;#8216;usability&amp;#8217; and &amp;#8216;design&amp;#8217; thinking to making life easier and more usable for the common man (us!) in India. Among other areas the event will focus on Healthcare, Education, and Government Services and other public services and utilities that touch our lives everyday. It will include how Information and Communication Technologies and services can make this happen. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;font color="#3399CC"&gt;When and Where?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Date: Monday, 05 November, 2007, Time: 4.00 pm to 7.30 pm&lt;br /&gt;Venue: Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt; &lt;font color="#3399CC"&gt;How to register&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Register directly at: http://hcibangalore.pbwiki.com/World%20Usability%20Day%2C%20Bangalore%2C%202007&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;( Wiki Password: usability )&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;font color="#3399CC"&gt;What will happen?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;font color="#669900"&gt;Acid Test:&lt;/font&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="/files/chibangalore/world-usability-day/test.gif" width="82" height="82" align="left"&gt;A team of usability professionals will be conducting usability testing of public services websites including the Indian Railways and the Indian Airlines October. The results from this public usability study will be shared with the audience to raise awareness about the usability of public services.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;font color="#669900"&gt;Presentations and talks by experts:&lt;/font&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="/files/chibangalore/world-usability-day/mic.gif" width="82" height="82" align="left"&gt;Hear from real world experts who have tried to make a difference in public services including healthcare, e- governance and the healthcare space. Also, we will have experts who will bring in the focus of usability and how it can make a difference in the public services and healthcare in India and the emerging markets. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;font color="#669900"&gt; Workshop on designing new public services:&lt;/font&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="/files/chibangalore/world-usability-day/warzone.jpg" width="82" height="82" align="left"&gt;Participants will be divided into groups and given the challenge of designing new services around the theme of &amp;#8221;&amp;#8221;How usability can impact public services and healthcare in India&amp;#8221;. They will be provided with materials for brainstorming and data points and constraints for informing their designs. The panel of experts will judge the best entry at the event &amp;#8211; Lot of exciting prizes are waiting to be won.&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;font color="#669900"&gt;Raves, Rants, and Ramblings: (Impromptu presentations, discussions, food, and photo sessions: &lt;/font&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="/files/chibangalore/world-usability-day/commu.gif" width="75" height="54" align="left"&gt;The event will contain several opportunities for breaking into smaller groups where people from the community can present and discuss issues or new methods. There will be spaces for informal community discussions, idea sharing and networking. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;font color="#669900"&gt;Organizers :&lt;/font&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For further information please contact: &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sarit Arora &amp;#8211; sarit@humanfactors.com &lt;br /&gt;Amit Pande &amp;#8211; Pande.amit@gmail.com&lt;br /&gt;Muthu &amp;#8211; muthuonline@gmail.com &lt;br /&gt;Sudhindra &amp;#8211; sudhindra.v@humanfactors.com&lt;br /&gt;Rahul &amp;#8211; rahul.arora@honeywell.com&lt;br /&gt;Navneet &amp;#8211; navneet.nair@gmail.com&lt;br /&gt;Suresh &amp;#8211; cre8tvt@gmail.com &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 27 Sep 2007 14:05:28 GMT</pubDate>
      <author></author>
      <category>Events</category>
      <category>usability</category>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>CHI 2007 Perspectives: Opening Plenary </title>
      <link>http://chibangalore.mypublicsquare.com/view/perspectives-chi</link>
      <guid>http://chibangalore.mypublicsquare.com/view/perspectives-chi</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;In his talk &amp;#8220;Why Intuitive Design?&amp;#8221; Bill Moggridge talked us through how people adopt technology.&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h2&gt;Technology Adoption&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;    &lt;p&gt;Every innovative product or tool goes through a typical adoption lifecycle,&lt;/p&gt;    &lt;p&gt;* A small but critical mass of early adopters start using it.
* Some of these adopters will come up with very practical ways of applying the product to their work context to improve productivity or to be more effective. 
* As volumes rise over time, prices start going down. There comes a time when the price points are just right for the consumer market.&lt;/p&gt;    &lt;p&gt;Business users are asking, &amp;#8220;How does it improve my productivity?&amp;#8221; Consumers on the other hand ask, &amp;#8220;How does it fit my lifestyle?&amp;#8221; Any product that answers this question well will make a successful transition to a mass-market consumer market.&lt;/p&gt;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="/files/chibangalore/perspectives-chi/CHI2007_keynote.JPG" width="640" height="427" alt="CHI 2007 Bill Moggridge" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h2&gt;A Case Study&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;    &lt;p&gt;Bill spoke about the divergence in the evolution of &lt;span class="caps"&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;SMS&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;/ text messaging in Japan &amp;#38; US as an example of this transition. Japan has always been considered the forerunner in the usage of &lt;span class="caps"&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;SMS&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; services (iMode), the reason for adoption and popularity of this technology had very specific cultural and environmental contexts,&lt;/p&gt;    &lt;p&gt;* In Japan it is considered impolite to talk on the phone in public places like the train.
* Long train commutes as most people have in Japan, gave them enough time to learn &amp;#38; use &lt;span class="caps"&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;SMS&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;/text services&lt;/p&gt;    &lt;p&gt;In the US the car being the primary mode of commuting provides a private space where people feel free to talk and hence the preference for voice communications.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h2&gt;Demystifying Innovation&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;    &lt;p&gt;Another major focus of his keynote was to look beyond the myth surrounding the creation of several iconic &amp;#8220;digital technology products&amp;#8221;. Bill Moggridge referred extensively to &amp;#8220;interviews&amp;#8221;:http://www.designinginteractions.com/interviews he had conducted with several Silicon Valley pioneers to try and de-mystify the process of creation as not just the &amp;#8216;eureka moment&amp;#8217; but the hard work and sweat (research?) preceding it.&lt;/p&gt;    &lt;p&gt;In retelling these stories, Bill Moggridge puts these seminal moments within the context of a design process,
# Frame or reframe the problem or objective
# Create &amp;#38; envision alternatives
# Select from those alternatives, knowing intuitively how to choose the best approach&lt;br /&gt;- Intuition based on rigorous work can lead to productive solutions. Research or in other words immersion in a topic at some point could help you see the connections (synthesize a solution) without conscious thought
# To visualize &amp;#38; prototype
# Synthesize a solution from all the relevant constraints, understanding everything that will make a difference to the result. &lt;br /&gt;Reference &amp;#8211; &amp;#8220;Designing Interactions&amp;#8221;:http://www.designinginteractions.com/book&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h2&gt;Food for thought&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;    &lt;p&gt;This part of the talk left me wondering about the differences between the lives of these inventors (while they were inventing these products) and our everyday work contexts. A common thread was the passion of the inventors, their belief that a solution to the problem they were addressing could fundamentally alter the way people accessed and used computers &amp;#38; technology.&lt;/p&gt;    &lt;p&gt;So what is the mystery of the missing passion in the context of our everyday work?&lt;/p&gt;    &lt;p&gt;* Is it the lack of an inspiring problem to solve or is it the lack of information about the problem domain? Do we see the pain that users &amp;#38; customers experience as a bullet point on a &lt;span class="caps"&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;PPT&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; or as a living person or group?
* Is it too much immersion in the nitty-gritties of work that you fail to see the big picture? Have we gotten into a habit of looking at the world with a narrow vision and judge what is useful &amp;#38; what is not? 
* Do we expose ourselves to the ideas and discussions on the periphery of our domains? At some point all main stream technologies like the Internet, SaaS, etc. were on the periphery. Perhaps it is time to look at the social networking phenomenon seriously for enterprise applications and not dismiss it as something relevant only for college kids?&lt;/p&gt;    &lt;p&gt;So how do you make &amp;#8220;work&amp;#8221; as enriching as the &amp;#8220;life&amp;#8221; of these inventors? &lt;br /&gt;Does anyone want to take a shot at finding the solution to the mystery of work? :-)&lt;/p&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 17 May 2007 05:45:59 GMT</pubDate>
      <author>Durgaprasad Vemula</author>
      <category>Case Studies</category>
      <category>Design</category>
      <category>Events</category>
      <category>Innovation</category>
      <category>usability</category>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Indian e-Government Initiative: An Ideal Case for Universal Design and Usability</title>
      <link>http://chibangalore.mypublicsquare.com/view/indian-e-government</link>
      <guid>http://chibangalore.mypublicsquare.com/view/indian-e-government</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;At the outset of this deliberation on Indian e-Governance initiative, it is necessary to emphasize that our intentions are constructive and very positive. The idea is to identify opportunities for further improvement; the objective is to see how common citizens be benefited through this effort; and maximize the Returns On Investment (ROI).&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;1. The Missing Focus on &amp;#8216;Design for Usability&amp;#8217;&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The recommendations issued by &amp;#8220;National Knowledge Commission of India&amp;#8221;:http://www.knowledgecommission.org/downloads/NKCRecommendationsEGovernance.pdf or the standards being developed for e-governance mainly focus technical aspects, which is very important. But at the same time, we should also notice that the fundamental issues like &amp;#8216;User Centred Design (UCD) and Usability&amp;#8217; are not covered adequately. The quality standards for e-governance cover limited aspects like documentation, interoperability, network, information security, metadata, localization, etc. Accessibility of e-government services is considered only from the connectivity point of view. In this context what Shneiderman [2000] categorically points out is very relevant- accessibility and standards are not sufficient to ensure successful usage. &amp;#8220;The usability survey on India&amp;#8217;s state government web portals&amp;#8221;:http://www.hceye.org/HCIrony-KATRE7.htm [2006] reveals several design deficiencies and lack of technical maturity. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;BR&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Despite investing so much on building e-goverment systems, the basic questions still remain to be addressed- &lt;br /&gt;
a. How will the citizens figure out the use of e-government system?&lt;br /&gt;b. Will they be able to understand the procedures to obtain services?&lt;br /&gt;c. Will they be able to comprehend the design of user interface? &lt;br /&gt;d. Is localization adding further to obscurity?&lt;br /&gt;e. Will they be satisfied with the functional behavior of system?&lt;br /&gt;f. Will they get the desired output?&lt;br /&gt;g. Will it fulfill their goals?&lt;br /&gt;h. At what cost, time and effort?&lt;br /&gt;i. After all the investments, has it made their life easy?&lt;br /&gt;j. Will it take care of their security, privacy, safety concerns?&lt;br /&gt;k. Will they feel empowered and independent?&lt;br /&gt;l. How to ensure overall usability of the system?&lt;/B&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;BR&gt;&lt;br /&gt;....there are many more questions like these.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;BR&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;h2&gt;2. User Centric or Government Centric ?&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The usability of e-government systems is indispensable if the vision of Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsive and Transparent &amp;#8220;(SMART) government&amp;#8221;:http://www.mit.gov.in/eg/article2.asp had to become a reality. And shouldn&amp;#8217;t the electronic systems be measured against the &lt;span class="caps"&gt;SMART&lt;/span&gt; parameters for purpose of validation? I came across the &lt;span class="caps"&gt;SMART&lt;/span&gt; definition of e-government on some Indian government website. Although the acronym &lt;span class="caps"&gt;SMART&lt;/span&gt; is very attractive, it is not sufficient to capture the essence of usability. Absolute fulfillment of &amp;#8216;user&amp;#8217;s goal&amp;#8217; with ease, efficiency and effectiveness are at the nucleus of Usability. These attributes define the quality for &amp;#8216;system design&amp;#8217;. On the contrary, the &lt;span class="caps"&gt;SMART&lt;/span&gt; attributes define the quality for &amp;#8216;government&amp;#8217;. So the &lt;span class="caps"&gt;SMART&lt;/span&gt; attributes are again keeping the &amp;#8216;Government&amp;#8217; at its centre and not &amp;#8216;the user or the citizen&amp;#8217;. This difference should be noted very clearly.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;BR&gt;&lt;br /&gt;User Centred Design (UCD) approach requires you to design every aspect of the system through study, consultation and participation of the targeted user. In the current discussion, the users are Indian citizens and government agencies both. Practicing &lt;span class="caps"&gt;UCD&lt;/span&gt; approach as part of Product Development Life Cycle (PDLC) and its institutionalization has posed many challenges. New techniques, methods and processes need to be explored. Have we tried to confront these questions before planning huge investments for e-government? In my personal assessment, the answer is NO!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;BR&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;h2&gt;3. Lessons Not Learnt&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In many e-government projects operational systems get developed but they fail to win acceptance from stakeholders due to major usability problems. This is quite true, as the World Bank has already reported that approximately 85% of e-governance projects in developing countries are failures; and only 15% can be seen as fully successes. The electronic solutions are implanted into government offices without catering to the transformational aspects (mental, organizational, working style, etc.) and providing the entire eco-system for long-term sustenance. &lt;br /&gt;
	&lt;p&gt;Usability is very critical in e-government, as even one usability problem can adversely affect millions of citizens, it can cost them time and money. Shouldn&amp;#8217;t it be of paramount importance to the political establishments in India considering the magnitude of dissatisfaction or satisfaction that results out of non-usability or usability of e-governance? Year after year India is multiplying its budget allocation for e-governance with new projects and missions e.g., government of India is about to launch the Rs. 23,000 crore e-governance action plan, which will unfold in next 5 years. As per the rule of thumb 10% of the total resources should be spent on the process of User Centred Design, which can ensure the end outcome (usability and satisfaction of users). It will require upfront planning, comprehensive strategy and mechanisms for introducing &lt;span class="caps"&gt;UCD&lt;/span&gt; process at such massive scale.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;4. Citizen Centric Design (CCD)&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Most e-government systems are being built to exactly mimic the age-old conventional procedures. To my surprise, I have come across some online forms indicating the place for signature and thumb impression! Computerization of such procedures is in fact a golden opportunity to change them for greater efficiency and effectiveness. Participatory design techniques can be applied for involving the citizens in improving such lengthy procedures; their feedback and suggestions can be gathered for better analysis and design. The existing approach of User Centric Design (UCD) needs to be further evolved as Citizen Centric Design (CCD) especially for e-government. &lt;B&gt; CCD approach should be defined so as to democratize the design of e-government procedures. Conversely, the e-government systems are getting designed and built in a pretty dictatorial mode and therefore resulting in dismal success rate.&lt;/B&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;BR&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;h2&gt;5. Usability Audit&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Performance and effectiveness measurement or periodic usability auditing of e-government systems is very important for validation of claims and continuous enhancement of design. If there is not even mention of &amp;#8216;usability&amp;#8217; in Indian e-government plans and projects then how could we expect something like &amp;#8216;usability audit&amp;#8217; to be there? Many foreign countries are already practicing it.&lt;br /&gt;
	&lt;p&gt;In 2004, &amp;#8220;Dubai e-Government&amp;#8221;:http://www.ameinfo.com/42994.html integrated the portals of 24 departments and engaged professional agencies for auditing the usability of these portals to ensure compliance with standards and ease of use for the citizens. They have been organizing several workshops to create awareness and sensitize the government departments about the importance of usability. &amp;#8220;St. Petersburg government websites in Russia&amp;#8221;:http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/NISPAcee/UNPAN020449.pdf have been already evaluated and audited on the parameters like functionality, accessibility and usability in 2004. UK Government is also reported to have performed usability audit for government websites. &amp;#8220;UK Cabinet Office&amp;#8221;:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4478702.stm found that 97% of official sites were unusable by disabled people, largely because they ignored well-known techniques for making data accessible, as per the &lt;span class="caps"&gt;BBC&lt;/span&gt; News report published in 2005. &amp;#8220;Australian government&amp;#8221;:http://www.nao.org.uk/intosai/edp/intoit_articles/17p20top23.pdf has also audited its websites for ensuring their accessibility and usability. On the other hand China has already defined its policy to promote inclusive design and &amp;#8220;Universal Usability (UD)&amp;#8221;:http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/2004/newmarketplace.htm.  &amp;#8220;ISO&amp;#8221;:http://www.userfocus.co.uk/articles/ISO23973.html is also developing a special website usability standard named &amp;#8216;Software ergonomics for World Wide Web user interfaces&amp;#8217;.&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;In short, the international scenario shows greater awareness and concern for usability in the e-governance domain compared to India. Everywhere the common experience about conformance to good-looking standards is poor execution. That seems to be the crux of the problem in India too. But unfortunately, usability and Citizen Centred Design (CCD) has not figured anywhere in Indian e-Governance planning, standards, best practices and development lifecycles. There is just no mention of it. Therefore, even if a system conforms to the so-called standards, it may not guarantee ease of use for the citizens.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;6. Design for Universal Usability&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#8220;Universal design&amp;#8221;:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_design, which is related to &amp;#8220;inclusive design&amp;#8221; and &amp;#8220;design for all,&amp;#8221; is an approach to the design of products, services and environments to be usable by as many people as possible regardless of age, ability or situation. It links directly to the political concept of an inclusive society and its importance has been recognized by governments, business and industry. In this, assistive technologies play an important role for the disabled users. This is a relatively new design paradigm and in my opinion very relevant to e-governance. It is important to mention that with the strong support from Department of Information Technology, Government of India; C-DAC has undertaken major &amp;#8220;language technology development initiative&amp;#8221;:http://cdac.in/html/mlingual.asp, which includes development of assistive technologies like text-to-speech, speech-to-text, translation systems for Indian languages. These technologies will lay the foundations for achieving the universal usability goal in the context of e-governance. C-DAC&amp;#8217;s efforts, with its limited resources, also include ensuring usability of Indian languages over Internet and the extensions for semantic web in support of the &amp;#8220;World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)&amp;#8221;:http://www.w3.org. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;BR&gt;&lt;br /&gt;India has approx. 400 million illiterate population. There are over 10 million blind persons in our country, the highest percentage in the world. There are some 6 million movement disabled and about 3 million mentally disabled people as per the 2001 &amp;#8220;census of India&amp;#8221;:http://www.censusindia.net. Straight away it keeps out almost 50% of India&amp;#8217;s population from availing the e-government services. Basic connectivity and infrastructure is another biggest impediment. Above all, the linguistic, socio-cultural and political diversities pose different challenges when it comes to designing user interfaces. Within the small proportion of literate and on-line citizens in India, many are unable to avail proper services from e-government portals or kiosks due to non-usability. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;BR&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The user study for designing e-Government systems should include aspects like- human factors (cognitive and physical); age and gender based preferences; economic, historical, linguistic, social, cultural and political background; illiteracy (script and computer both), physical disabilities, environmental conditions, electricity and internet connectivity limitations, etc. Assistive user interfaces be designed and technology support be provided to address the wide range of user needs. Ignoring these aspects amounts to being discriminative and depriving many citizens from availing the rightful government services. Indian e-government initiative requires a much more encompassing vision, with an objective of universal design and usability for the citizens, if it has to truly serve and be successful.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;BR&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;h2&gt;7. References&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
	&lt;p&gt;1.    Shneiderman Ben, Universal Usability, Communications of the &lt;span class="caps"&gt;ACM&lt;/span&gt;, May 2000/Vol.43. No. 5, pp. 84-91&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;2.    Universal Usability (UU)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;URL&lt;/span&gt; Accessed in Jan 2007:&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#8220;http://www.universalusability.org&amp;#8221;:http://www.universalusability.org&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;3.    Definition of Universal Design&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;URL&lt;/span&gt; Accessed in Jan 2007:&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#8220;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_design&amp;#8221;:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_design&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;4.    Web Usability Standards&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;URL&lt;/span&gt; Accessed in Jan 2007:&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#8220;http://www.userfocus.co.uk/articles/ISO23973.html&amp;#8221;:http://www.userfocus.co.uk/articles/ISO23973.html&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;5.    Budhiraja Renu, Electronic Governance &#8211; A key issue in the 21st century&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;URL&lt;/span&gt; Accessed in Jan 2007:    &lt;br /&gt;&amp;#8220;http://www.mit.gov.in/eg/article2.asp&amp;#8221;:http://www.mit.gov.in/eg/article2.asp&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;6.    Recommendations for e-governance by National Knowledge Commission of India&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;URL&lt;/span&gt; Accessed in Jan 2007:&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#8220;http://www.knowledgecommission.org/downloads/NKCRecommendationsEGovernance.pdf&amp;#8221;:http://www.knowledgecommission.org/downloads/NKCRecommendationsEGovernance.pdf&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;7.    E-Government, InTo IT, The Audit Office of New South, Wales, Australia, &lt;br /&gt;pp. 18-21&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;URL&lt;/span&gt; Accessed in Jan 2007: &amp;#8220;http://www.nao.org.uk/intosai/edp/intoit_articles/17p20top23.pdf&amp;#8221;:http://www.nao.org.uk/intosai/edp/intoit_articles/17p20top23.pdf&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;8.    Government sites &amp;#8216;fail disabled&amp;#8217;, News Report by &lt;span class="caps"&gt;BBC&lt;/span&gt;, 2005&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;URL&lt;/span&gt; Accessed in Jan 2007:&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#8220;http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4478702.stm&amp;#8221;:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4478702.stm&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;9.    Golubeva A, Merkuryeva I, Shulakov N, &lt;span class="caps"&gt;DEVELOPMENT OF E&lt;/span&gt;-GOVERNMENT &lt;span class="caps"&gt;IN ST&lt;/span&gt;. PETERSBURG: &lt;span class="caps"&gt;EVALUATION OF WEB SITES PERFORMANCE AND USABILITY&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;URL&lt;/span&gt; Accessed in Jan 2007: &lt;br /&gt;&amp;#8220;http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/NISPAcee/UNPAN020449.pdf&amp;#8221;:http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/NISPAcee/UNPAN020449.pdf&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;10.    Dubai eGovernment to conduct usability audits&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;URL&lt;/span&gt; Accessed in Jan 2007:&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#8220;http://www.ameinfo.com/42994.html&amp;#8221;:http://www.ameinfo.com/42994.html&amp;#8221;:http://www.ameinfo.com/42994.html&amp;#8221;:http://www.ameinfo.com/42994.html&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;11.    Dinesh Katre, Usability Survey Report of Indian State Government Web Portals, &lt;span class="caps"&gt;HCI&lt;/span&gt; Vistas, Volume-I, 2006&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;URL&lt;/span&gt; Accessed in Jan 2007:&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#8220;http://www.hceye.org/HCIrony-KATRE7.htm&amp;#8221;:http://www.hceye.org/HCIrony-KATRE7.htm&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;12.    Disabled Population (2001 Census), Census of India Distribution of the disabled by type of disability&#8211; 2001&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;URL&lt;/span&gt; Accessed in Jan 2007:&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#8220;http://www.censusindia.net&amp;#8221;:http://www.censusindia.net&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;13.    Design for Inclusion: Creating a New Marketplace, National Council on Disability&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;URL&lt;/span&gt; Accessed in Jan 2007:&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#8220;http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/2004/newmarketplace.htm&amp;#8221;:http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/2004/newmarketplace.htm&lt;/p&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 03 Apr 2007 09:44:04 GMT</pubDate>
      <author>Dr. Dinesh  Katre</author>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Expanding Boundaries of HCI </title>
      <link>http://chibangalore.mypublicsquare.com/view/expanding-boundaries</link>
      <guid>http://chibangalore.mypublicsquare.com/view/expanding-boundaries</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="/files/chibangalore/expanding-boundaries/chi_acm.jpg" width="500" height="54" alt="chibangalore ACM" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Expanding Boundaries of &lt;span class="caps"&gt;HCI&lt;/span&gt; :  Chibangalore Event&lt;br /&gt;22nd of March 2007&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;Chibangalore was formed to address the growing needs of the &lt;span class="caps"&gt;HCI&lt;/span&gt; professionals and students in Bangalore. Within the last year and half ,  6 events have been organized with host of speakers from around the world.&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;2007 kick starts with an event in March.&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Topic: Expanding the Boundaries of &lt;span class="caps"&gt;HCI&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Guest Speakers:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;We have two renowned speakers for the event&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~jofish/"&gt;Joseph Kaye (Jofish) &lt;/a&gt;  from Cornell University and &lt;a href="http://www.humanfactors.com/about/eric.asp"&gt;Dr. Eric Schaffer &lt;/a&gt;, &lt;span class="caps"&gt;CEO&lt;/span&gt;, Human Factors International .&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Event Details&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;Date :   22th March 2007&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;Venue : St. Mark &amp;#8217; s Hotel &lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4/1 St. Mark's Road&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;br /&gt;

	&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Bangalore - 560001&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;br /&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;Time :   3:00 &amp;#8211; 5:45 pm&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Agenda&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;3:00 &#8211; 3:15 pm &amp;#8211; Chibangalore Updates &#8211; Durga Prasad, Sarit Arora, Aurobinda Pradhan&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;3:15 &#8211; 4:00 pm &amp;#8211; Expanding the Scope: Pushing the Boundaries of &lt;span class="caps"&gt;HCI&lt;/span&gt;  &#8211; Joseph Kaye&lt;br /&gt;4:00 &amp;#8211; 4:10 pm &amp;#8211; Q&amp;#38;A Session&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;&amp;#8220;As information technologies become ever more popular and ubiquitous, it becomes increasingly important to think about how we in human-computer interaction can build for, support, and understand the rich and varied ways that users interact with and through devices&amp;#8221;.&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;Jofish will discuss ways to think about experience-focused &lt;span class="caps"&gt;HCI&lt;/span&gt; rather than task-focused. This approach considers technology use outside the workplace and designing information technologies that can support rich interactions. He will draw from a variety of research both within and outside the field, including his own work on computerized scent output and on building technologies for couples in long distance relationships.&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;4:10 &#8211; 4:45 pm &#8211; Break: Light refreshments will be served&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;4:45 &#8211; 5:30 &amp;#8211; Usability PETscan &#8211; Dr. Eric Schaffer  &lt;br /&gt;5:30 &amp;#8211; 5:45 &amp;#8211; Q&amp;#38;A Session&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;HFI&lt;/span&gt;&amp;#8217;s Usability PETscan through analysis of persuasion, emotion and trust provides deep insight into the users decision-making processes to create positive relationships with consumers and impact conversion. The PETscan solution provides an opportunity to truly understand the consumer experience&#8212;it gives a thorough analysis of the elements, content and interactions that lead to a more complete experience for your existing and potential consumers.&amp;#8221; Dr. Schaffer will conduct a session introducing you to the PETscan technique.&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Registration: &lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;There is no registration fee. Please confirm your participation by registering at the following link. If you are in the database then please mark &amp;#8220;YES&amp;#8221; @ &amp;#8216;Register me for the March event&amp;#8217; column&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chibangalore/database?method=reportRows&amp;#38;tbl=1&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;If you have any difficulty in accessing the link please confirm your participation by sending a mail to Sarit Arora ( sarit(at)humanfactors.com)&lt;/p&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 15 Mar 2007 07:35:03 GMT</pubDate>
      <author>Sarit Arora</author>
      <category>Events</category>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Chibangalore - Update 2007</title>
      <link>http://chibangalore.mypublicsquare.com/view/chibangalore-update</link>
      <guid>http://chibangalore.mypublicsquare.com/view/chibangalore-update</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;Chibangalore was formed to address the growing needs of the &lt;span class="caps"&gt;HCI&lt;/span&gt; professionals in Bangalore. Bangalore is the hub of IT in India and now the IT companies are giving a lot of emphasis to usability and user centered design activities. In fact, according to the latest statistics from Google, the word &amp;#8216;usability&amp;#8217; was most searched in the world from Bangalore!&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;It was not that there weren&amp;#8217;t any existing groups in South India which provided a platform to interact. There is the Easy conference on usability which takes place in Bangalore annually and has a sizable brand presence. But an annual event ,with limited participation, does not cater to the growing needs of the &lt;span class="caps"&gt;HCI&lt;/span&gt; community in bangalore.&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;It was seen that the &lt;span class="caps"&gt;HCI&lt;/span&gt; professionals were grappling with lots of issues specific to the needs of the Indian IT industry. For example &#8211; Users not being in the same country, how to integrate user centered process with the software design life cycle, how to institutionalize usability in software outsourcing companies etc. Understanding this need, Chibangalore was formed which represents the software products, services and the consulting companies in Bangalore. The aim was to have more number of events and touch points within the community so that the sharing of best practices processes and developments can be done more frequently. Also, one of things this forum wants to achieve is to make this platform more inclusive- Include most of the companies representing many streams within IT so that the learning&amp;#8217;s can be disseminated across the domains.&lt;/p&gt;

Within the last year and half close to 6 events have been organized with host of speakers from around the world: Here are some of the speakers who have presented in chibangalore events&lt;br /&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.interaction-design.org/references/authors/jonathan_arnowitz.html"&gt;Jonathan Arnowitz &lt;/a&gt;- Rapid Prototyping and Demo of Prototyping Tools&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.cmpevents.com/SDw6/a.asp?option=G&amp;#38;V=3&amp;#38;id=423050"&gt;Michael Arent &lt;/a&gt;- Moving from a engineering centered to a user centered organization&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://portal.acm.org/results.cfm?query=author%3AJeremy%20Ashley&amp;#38;querydisp=author%3AJeremy%20Ashley&amp;#38;coll=&amp;#38;dl=ACM&amp;#38;CFID=15151515&amp;#38;CFTOKEN=6184618"&gt;Jeremy Ashley &lt;/a&gt;- Head user experience Oracle&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~konstan/"&gt;Joseph Konstan&lt;/a&gt; &amp;#8211;    President of &lt;span class="caps"&gt;ACM&lt;/span&gt; Sigchi&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.srishtiblr.org/faculty.htm"&gt;Geetha Naryanan&lt;/a&gt; &amp;#8211; Founder and director of Srishti school of design&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
	&lt;p&gt;The events have been attended by wide array of companies like Infosys, &lt;span class="caps"&gt;SAP&lt;/span&gt;, Honeywell, HP, &lt;span class="caps"&gt;HFI&lt;/span&gt;, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun and many others. Companies have taken turns in organizing the events. Taking the lead in organizing are &lt;span class="caps"&gt;SAP&lt;/span&gt;, HFI, Honeywell, Oracle and Microsoft.&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;To kick start the 2007 activities, there is an event planned in March. For more details, watch this space.&lt;/p&gt;

	&lt;p&gt;To make Chibangalore as a more inclusive forum this new website has been initiated. You can contribute as an author; add comments to the articles, rate authors, add biographies etc. So please go ahead register yourself using the register link on the top right corner and start contributing!.&lt;/p&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 15 Feb 2007 11:44:31 GMT</pubDate>
      <author>Sarit Arora</author>
      <category>Events</category>
    </item>
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