Archive for December, 2006

Designing for Social Sharing

December 12, 2006 at 3:18 pm · Filed under New Products, Rich Internet Application, User Experience, web 2.0

Excellent presentation on “Designing for Social Sharing” by Rashmi Sinha

We have been working on a social sharing platform that brings the desktop and web closer, there by making it easy for users to share ‘Objects’ off their desktop. Our experience mirrors what is outlined in this presentation.

1. Make the platform valuable to the user on its own. Things that user can do even before starting to share. Urge the user to do more with objects.

2. Analyze every aspect of sharing – the natural reasons for sharing, the sharing experience best for both parties, granularity and control on objects and people groups, lowering barriers to sharing, etc.

3. Viral is natural side-effect, just enable it at the right places in the product.

SlideShare … excellent product.

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What is missing with the Web Applications

December 7, 2006 at 5:54 pm · Filed under Desktop, Rich Internet Application, User Experience, Web Services

This entry is based on the presentation we made at the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit 2006 titled “Beyond SAAS”.

First, let us look at the 3 big reasons why users like web applications:

  1. Anytime – Anywhere access
  2. Zero system administration
  3. Sharing with others

Makes a lot of sense. Hence the big rush to the web, to the extent that all other platforms of development (including apps for the desktop) were completely forgotten.

But, after nearly a decade of this incessant movement, are there certain learnings? As users do we find some things missing?

1. Forced to leave our data (at many different websites)

I realize that my emails/contacts are with Yahoo & Google, photos are with Flickr & Webshots, blogs are with WordPress & Blogger, bookmarks somewhere else, calendar some site, and so on. Thanks to the recent trend of Web Services APIs and open policies of few sites, you can now take back some of your own data, maybe with some technical help. But, one still cannot be assured of getting everything you uploaded or provided online (photos resized, removed for exceeding quota, etc.).

Are users being held ‘data hostage’? Does the web application model inherently bring this lock-in for users? Should sites/apps provide an option of where you store your data (like a online data storage service)?

Some of us have come to expect that websites may use our private data or friends list for other purposes not entirely known to us. There is very little control we have on this.

2. Cannot continue using the same applications, when offline

I call this ‘desktop disconnect’. Why should my email client on the web and desktop look and work so different? Homogeneity of user experience and usability is missing when we use a desktop app and its web counterpart.

Would it be nice to have it all work the same online or offline? Will the web and desktop working closer?

Read some very interesting observations by Tara Hunt:

  • All of our information is stored in the ether. If we want to store it on our own machines, we have to take an extra step. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
  • And speaking of information in the ether. Wouldn’t it be good to work offline whenever we wanted to and have it update when we are re-connected?

3. Sharing difficulties, privacy and control

How can Friends, Family and Public be enough classification of people I want to share? Finer grain control on whom I can share and what, becomes important when sharing is frequent and many types of information (or digital asset) are involved.

Then comes the tedious and time-consuming task of uploading. Waiting to finish (when it is not asynchronous) is a waste of time, however nice and engaging the progress bar is.

I find it difficult to effectively manage my uploads, purge what is no longer required (for sharing) and be within limits of my account type or end up paying extra. Every user ends up having more stuff uploaded than he needs at any point in time, which does not serve well the user or the host. The problem of ‘The Unpurged Trash”.

I realize there are countless online accounts to be open, profiles to be edited, contacts to be added and endless repeats of information that is again private and better managed with me. When I use a web app, I cannot use the information I already have online, because it is on someone else’s website.

Time has come for change in how applications should be designed. Here are some thoughts, as to what could do good to end users.

I wish …

I can have data reside on my desktop (secure, private and in my control) and still have the ability to selectively share it with my buddies or the whole world without making multiple copies of it.

I can keep my contacts and my buddies list and can use it for sharing a variety of things.

I can have an option to use online storage, either with the app provider or Amazon S3 or some other paid online storage that I already have.

I can have seamless user experience across desktop and web, including transitions between online and offline.


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Branded Desktop Application! Coming soon to a desktop near you

December 6, 2006 at 1:25 pm · Filed under Desktop, Platforms, User Experience

What is a Branded Desktop Application?

Didn’t big brand software companies sell desktop applications all the time? Yes, but it is different this time. Here we are talking of applications from brands like Coca Cola, CNN, ESPN and Southwest Airlines! Yes, you download from their website!

Why not just the website?

Direct marketing outside of the browser has interested the marketers as the web advertising is crowded, complex (need to track user behavior), and well, not everyone goes to their site every day. It would be best to be on the consumer’s desktop all the time, focus on content and user experience of the brand. Serves most of what marketers desire – immediacy, relevance, attention span, permission and repeated brand impressions.

These branded applications are cool. They carry the slickest interface (obviously). They innovate on what exactly is helpful (why would anyone download). Imagine the Branded Desktop Application, which knows where you are going, provides real-time flight update, destination Weather, itinerary planner and seat-picker. OTOlabs has a platform for building such apps. Southwest Airlines has stimulated more ticket sales from a small desktop application called DING. CNN/Pipeline, ESPN/Motion, WeatherBug are good examples.

What do they gain?

Big brand companies would love to be on your desktop. Enhances brand loyalty and lifetime value of their customers. Builds a personal relationship and increased traffic to their website.

It’s all about advertising.

Some applications like WeatherBug sell advertising space to other publishers and brands. Just like the ads on your Yahoo! Internet Messenger.

Although they are ad-supported, these applications are not like the typical Adware that track the user behavior on the web and annoy with indiscriminate pop-ups.

Fine. But why would I need such an app?

While everyone wants some real estate in your icon tray and desktop, why should you permit? Well it provides information, entertainment and functionality at your doorstep and you choose to download and use. Of course, the application provider has to worry about keeping it useful and engaging, all the time.

How is it different from a widget?

Widgets are also tiny applications that work off your desktop, but mostly designed for a widget framework (such as Google Desktop). Branded Desktop Applications are mostly self-contained and independent. Widget frameworks like Klipfolio are brandable, extendible (by downloading more klips) and highly customizable.

Is it about doing more on the desktop or a landgrab of our desktop?


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The Computer is Personal Again

December 4, 2006 at 4:30 pm · Filed under Desktop, Platforms

I attended the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit 2006 and one thing that caught my attention was the HP’s new marketing campaign – “The Computer is Personal Again”. HP showed a very cute AD and had a variety of stickers to pickup, all with this message.

They are talking of the desktop I have owned for a long time? Then what has become ‘personal again’?

It’s the focus. The focus is again on making the computer personal. More involved. No longer treating it as a window (read browser) to what anyone is presenting a website somewhere. Did we forget the desktop in the last decade of the great web app revolution?

The renewed focus on the desktop has brought change in two ways – enhancing the way the web application is written (Ajax, Rich Internet Applications) and whole new ways of building apps for the desktop, using web as a major resource (Internet-connected desktop application, desktop widgets, Branded Desktop Applications).

Suddenly the desktop is involved in creating the new user experience for the web app. Desktop-like user experience means, more desktop apps could be rebuilt as web apps.

The converse is also true. We are now bringing the web to the desktop. More and more applications (and platforms) are getting built for the desktop that behave like web apps, are always connected, and have most of their data/content coming from the web. This is well supported by web services, web site APIs, microformats and the semantic web.

Will this be a trend of the near future?


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