Blog: archive page
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HTML5
29 June 2011
We recently started learning and building HTML5 to power our product in development and found some good resources online which can help you learn HTML5.
If you want to learn HTML5,the resources below should help start the process. The best way to further improve on the knowledge is build things.Nothing beats real world implementation examples on your own projects or on client projects.
- Apple HTML5 Gallery Safari)
Books :
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Does good design really matter?
12 July 2011
I was reading an article on BusinessWorld India and noticed a few of the winners of Young Entrepreneur awards having really bad website design / user interface.These businesses were Internet based business and they spent little / no time coming up with a good interface for their websites. And yet they won.
As someone who likes simple design I went through their websites and was not so happy about the user interface. I think design is important part of a web site and a good UI can make or break at website. But in this case I was wrong, these website were badly designed, but yet as a company they were doing well. Their website converted(not sure how) and people we using it.
So am I wrong with thinking that UI matters? I am not. As a person who enjoys good design I would not visit these websites or stay on it for more than 10 seconds. But clearly, their target audience were not people like me. Their audience were people who’s purpose was to post content and get information. As long as people could do this, the site was doing it’s job for them.
But then if content really is attracting factor, what happens to all the time spend designing beautiful interfaces?Steve Krug’s book, Don’t Make me Think best answers these questions. As people use their application / website more often they will start to loose interest in the product. If the UI is hard to use or makes people think, they will leave and move on to the next thing. To a web site / application which has a better UI.
Maybe thats your competitive edge over your competitor. A better UI. And that will make all the difference.
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Book : Designing for the Web
14 July 2011
One of the really good books I read recently. Highly recommended if you are a web designer.
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A Beautiful Boilerplate for Responsive, Mobile-Friendly Development
17 July 2011
Skeleton is a small collection of CSS & JS files that can help you rapidly develop sites that look beautiful at any size, be it a 17” laptop screen or an iPhone.
One of really good Rapid Development framework. Skeleton
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Payment Gateways in India
29 July 2011
After spending about 2 days looking for a payment gateway to process Credit Cards / Debit Cards for Indian customers,the end result of the search has left me disappointed. The choices available to subscribe are quite a few,but none stood out.
No payment gateway was designed to ‘WOW’ the customer visiting the website. The design choice of each website, looked untouched since ages.I last saw these designs was 8-10 years ago.
Do they gateways need updates to their Interface? Yes. A good User Interface always help customers.Plus looking for information two clicks below is no fun.If you are leaving your customer frustrated, the chances that they recommend you to someone else is quite less.
Starting your own payment gateway is time consuming process plus it involves a lot of up front investment. Anyone looking to start an e commerce business / collect payment online to begin with,would not go ahead starting their own gateway. The choice which one has to make then, is go ahead with what is currently available,even if all of them seem to be broken.
A usable interface is not a choice, it’s a requirement. I hope Payment Gateways in India,read this and spend some time working on their User Interface. If you are in the process of starting your payment gateway, please get in touch. I have some inputs to provide on what needs to be fixed.
Which payment gateway did I decided to go with? EBS They were quick to respond and answer all my question.No other gateway did that when contacted.
Choices Available :
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A good place to discover new artist : thesixtyone
31 July 2011
Recently re discovered thesixtyone.com . I enjoy the full screen experience and how gamification is part of using the website.
Good luck thesixtyone.com team.
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Good Enough and Better
06 October 2011
Good Enough:
Better: