Tag Archives: UI

PuneStartups Event: Immersive User Experiences for Mobile Applications

Most (if not all) startups today are focused on building applications for the mobile. What is often an ignored or unknown aspect is the concept of immersive user experiences. Building an app which engages users with a solid user interface and a powerful functionality is key to acceptance. Design plays a very crucial role right from the seed stage of the idea of building the application.

POCC has organized a talk from the experts in the field of design, who would like to share their experiences in creating immersive user experiences for the mobile. Since the talk will be based on case studies and some theory, you will be able to gain insight into the world of design thinking.

Speakers for the seminar:

Mr. Anirudh Natuu

Principal Domian Expert- UX- Persistent Interactive at Persistent Systems Ltd.

Equipped to work in 2D and 3D space, skilled in Industrial design and now migrated to interaction design practice.Translating design Insights, Personna Mapping , Business process analysis and converting this into an Improved user experience.

Before moving to Interaction Design headed Industrial Design Practice at Radeus a BU of Persistent Systems Ltd. Working experience of White goods ,FMGC and Banking products.Worked with leading companies in India in the area of Industrial design through these assignments.

Mr. Manoj Kothari

Co-Founder Design Thinker, Insight Engineer, Futurologist, Innovation Coach at Onio Designs

Manoj currently leads Research and Innovation Strategy practice (which is now recast as TURIAN LABS) at Onio Design Pvt. Ltd., a leading design-led innovation consulting company which he co-founded in 1997. He is also the driver behind Onio’s design pedagogy, knowledge creation, marketing initiatives & brand manifestations.

Manoj uses his experience in building innovation capabilities in organizations, mentoring young entrepreneurs and speaking on design, innovation & entrepreneurship. He is skilled in managing multiple teams, profit centers and quickly structuring the fuzzy opportunities into scalable models. Handling cross-cultural issues, bringing up knowledge centric work culture and empowering the teams early on, are his strengths.

Mr. Harsh Munjal

Design Thinker, UX Designer, Artist at Persistent Systems

Harsh is an experienced specialist in human-computer interaction (HCI), usability research, and user experience design.

Design is his passion and since last 12 years, he has engaged in various aspects of design and believe in a mix of holistic and empathetic design. At the intersection of technology and art he believes in creating meaningful experiences that users understand, desire, and care about.

About PuneStartups (POCC)

With over 16000+ members, PuneStartups (aka POCC) is the largest forum for startups and entrepreneurs in Pune. It is an open forum, and anyone can join for free. See http://punestartups.com for more details.

Fees

This event is free and open to all. Please register here: http://punestartups.org/events/event/show?id=1988582%3AEvent%3A420879

The event will be from 5pm to 7pm on Saturday, 8th August, at Symbiosis SICSR (Room 707) Atur Center, Model Colony.

Please double-check the date/time/venue of the event at the above link. We try to ensure that PuneTech calendar listings are accurate, but occasional errors creep in.

Tech Events this Week: UI/UX, SAP, ScaleArc, OpenStack, Cocoa, IP @PuneStartups, PHP

Here is a list of technology events happening in Pune over the next few days. To be informed of these events in advance, you should subscribe to get the PuneTech calendar event announcements by email. Click here to subscribe.

(Paid) : A Front-End Engineering Conference

  • Date: Wed, 9 Jul 9:00am – 1:00pm
  • Location: 5th Floor, A-Wing, MCCIA, ICC Towers, SB Road

Web is very big, beyond the capacity of any one person to comprehend it. Started out as a simple document sharing platform, it rapidly became the communication standard for the world. Static content was replaced by dynamic content. What once were simple websites, are now replaced by complex web applications. Web is not one single technology. It is a mix of hardware, networks, protocols and lots more. However, one aspect of web did not receive the attention as it should have. That one aspect is the User Interface. Other than handful of computer engineers, web is being used by billions of people without having any formal knowledge of computer science. For these users, web is one black box that does things magically. All they have is access to web front-end in the form of websites and web applications. But still, front-end did not get deserved attention. But there were few who gave their energy and efforts to keep the front-end revolution moving. And <web/F> is one such non-sponsored and non-profit effort to keep that revolution going.

What does <web/F> mean?

We focus only on front-end part of web. That is why ‘web-slash-f’ or simply <web/F>. It is our fundamental belief that building a user interface is not as easy as it is general assumed to be. Just like any other software engineering activity, building a better user interface is software engineering process. It needs a discipline, clear thought, future vision and caring attitude towards users. That is why we call it front-end engineering.

And finally it is not about building interfaces, it is about crafting interfaces.

Speakers

Kumar Bhot: An entrepreneur, a technical leader and an established mentor. An inside-out Front-end Architect and Usability Engineer whose last 17 years are dedicated to crafting Web User Interfaces.

Harshal Patil: An avid writer at heart but worthy of wearing many hats. Love Front-end Engineering and always amazed by the challenges of this role.

Niloy Mondal: A Seasoned Front-end Engineer with Un-parallel Technical Skills.
Believe it when you hear him.

Guest speakers

Sagar Apte: Founder at CarIQ. A sharp mind in Product Management, Product Marketing and Business Analytics.

Deepak Thomas: Interface Design Ninja and Co-founder at CarIQ. A gifted artist with an impeccable eye for clean and simple user interfaces.

Pritam Hasabnis: Co-founder & Director at Omni-Bridge Systems. 15 years in IT Industry. Master at Project Management and Database Architecture.

Amit Shitole: Co-founder & Director at Omni-Bridge Systems. Serial Entrepreneur. Business Development and Marketing Strategy Guru.

Fees and Registration

This event is open for anybody to attend, and costs Rs. 500 for early birds. Please register here: http://webf.zone/

Please double-check the date/time/venue of the event at the above link. We try to ensure that PuneTech calendar listings are accurate, but occasional errors creep in.

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(Nominal Fees) Breakfast with @TiEPune: How start-ups can partner with SAP to transform their business

  • Date: Thu, 10 Jul 8:30am – 10:30am
  • Location: 5th Floor, A-Wing, MCCIA, ICC Towers, SB Road

TiE Pune Breakfast session – on How start-ups can partner with SAP to transform their customer’s business & achieve breakthrough growth

IT software companies face the classical dilemma of make v/s buy – that is, engineer their entire products inhouse, or pick certain relevant portions from leading technology / platform vendors. Building inhouse entails long development cycles, and often the market has moved by the time the product is ready. By partnering with SAP, such companies can not only speed up their Go to market, but also leverage SAP’s brand and leading technologies in Big Data, Mobility, Analytics & Cloud to enter markets and rapidly build transformational solutions for their customers. This session will share some examples of the work SAP’s partners are doing with customers – large & small – across the world, and offer new routes to market for partnering with SAP.

About the Speaker – Siddharth Hosangadi

Siddharth Hosangadi is a Business Leader with over 15 years of experience spanning several industries, geographies and functions. He has been employed with SAP India since 2005 in various sales and leadership roles, and currently leads SAP’s Strategic Initiatives and New Routes to Market in the Global Partner Operations organization. Prior to joining SAP, Siddharth worked in the IT services industry in MNC’s like Satyam and Ness Global Services, where he sold consulting solutions and professional services to customers in India and Singapore. Siddharth started his career in ICI India, as a Regional Sales Manager for their Specialty Chemicals business.

Siddharth is an active community leader, and counsels groups of families on Life Skills and Bhakti yoga in his spare time. He has been a visiting speaker at various business schools, and counsels and mentors MBA students around topics like communication skills, career planning and stress management.

Siddharth received an MBA degree in 1997 from the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute at Mumbai University (a top 10 business school in India), and he has taken formal training in Leadership, Strategic Selling & Effective Public Speaking. He received his B.E. degree in Chemical Engineering from UDCT (top Chem Engg institute in India) in 1995.

About TiE Pune

Pune chapter of TiE – A non-profit global network of entrepreneurs and professionals, established to foster entrepreneurship and nurture entrepreneurs.

Fees and Registration

Fees : 150/ members and 300/- non-members of TiE.

Register here: https://in.explara.com/e/tiepune10thjuly

Please double-check the date/time/venue of the event at the above link. We try to ensure that PuneTech calendar listings are accurate, but occasional errors creep in.

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My Story @TiEPune: Varun Singh, Founder and CTO of ScaleArc

  • Date: Fri, 11 Jul 6:30pm – 8:30pm
  • Location: Sumant Moolgaokar Auditorium, Ground Floor, Wing A, ICC Trade Center, SB Road

TiE Pune presents a “My Story” session with Varun Singh, Founder and CTO of ScaleArc.

As Chief Technology Officer, Varun leads ScaleArc’s Product Development and Technology Strategy. Varun also served as ScaleArc’s CEO from March 2009 to Sept 2013. Varun is a technologist with broad experience in several fields, from running Linux-based BBS systems in the pre-internet-boom days, to writing about technology and open source software at PC Quest, CHIP, Digit and Network Computing, to creating India’s top online technology brands such as TechTree and Tech2, to hosting technology shows on CNBC, TV18, CNN-IBN and ET Now. He led large Web & Application development teams as CTO at Network 18’s web division and built the highly scalable technology behind large websites like IN.com, MoneyControl.com and various other portals

Varun’s Interests: Horizontally-Scaled Infrastructure, Clustering, High-End Databases, Infrastructure Planning, Planning & Integrating Mergers & Acquisitions, Motorsports, Aeromodelling

About TiE Pune My Story Sessions!

“My Story – Inspiring Journey of an Entrepreneur”

This program is created to celebrate entrepreneurship and bring stories from successful entrepreneurs in their own words. The invited speakers will share their entrepreneurial journeys and talk about lessons learned, mistakes they wish they avoided, and key decisions that helped make their venture successful.

Fees and Registration

This event is free and open for anybody to attend. Please register here:

Please double-check the date/time/venue of the event at the above link. We try to ensure that PuneTech calendar listings are accurate, but occasional errors creep in.

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OpenStack Pune Meetup Group: Open Stack Integration with vSphere and NSX

  • Date: Sat, 12 Jul 10:30am – 2:00pm
  • Location: VMWare Software, 3rd Floor, Bajaj IT Tower, Building “Bajaj Brandview” , Wakdewadi

Agenda

This will be a Hands-on-lab focussed on OpenStack integration with vSphere and NSX.

Attend and learn about OpenStack and its integration with VMware Virtualization stack.

  • 10:30 am – 11:00 am : Registration
  • 11:00 am – 2:00 pm : Lab Exercises
  • 2:00 pm – : Lunch

About OpenStack Pune Meetup Group

This group is for OpenStack and Virtualization enthusiasts – Developers, IT Admins, Open Source Contributors to learn and share knowledge about this upcoming platform. This group is interested in Open Source, Cloud Computing, SaaS and Cloud Computing, OpenStack – Quantum, Virtualization, Building private cloud with OpenStack, OpenStack.

Fees and Registration

This event is free and open for anybody to attend. Please register here: http://www.meetup.com/OpenStack-Pune/events/189976362/

Please double-check the date/time/venue of the event at the above link. We try to ensure that PuneTech calendar listings are accurate, but occasional errors creep in.

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Pune PHP User Group: Test Driven Development in PHP

  • Date: Sat, 12 Jul 11:00am – 1:15pm
  • Location: Webonise Lab, GaloreTech IT Park, 3rd Floor, Behind Maratha Mandir, Bavdhan Khurd

The talks which we will be covering in talk, would solely focus towards Test Driven development, in PHP.

  • Test Driven Development with PHP : By Vijay Kumbhar (V.P of Engineering, Webonise Lab)
    • Vijay will be covering the approach, to be taken while going for Unit Testing. Also, he will talk about the Psychology behind Test Driven Development, what should be the objective in developer’s head.
  • Implementing Unit Testing on CakePHP and Yii Framework By Madhavi Kumbhar & Hrishikesh Ravekar
    • Madhavi and Hrishikesh would be covering the aspects related to Unit testing and will run through practical approach for TDD. What library should be opted, and Unit testing on different frameworks like CakePHP and Yii.

Please contact below, for queries regarding meet-up;

  • Nishant Shrivastava (Cell : +91 762 094 8483)
  • Madhavi (Cell : +91 988 193 5182)
  • Hrishikesh Ravekar (Cell : +91 956 174 1646)
  • Harshal Shinde (Cell : +91 982 271 2714)

About the Pune PHP User Group

This is a group for anyone interested in PHP, application development in Php, design patterns and etc. All skills levels are welcome. This group exists to meet other PHP enthusiasts in Pune.

Fees and Registration

This event is free and open for anybody to attend. Please register here: http://www.meetup.com/Pune-PHP-User-group/events/188638572/

Please double-check the date/time/venue of the event at the above link. We try to ensure that PuneTech calendar listings are accurate, but occasional errors creep in.

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“@PuneStartups (POCC) Meet: Basics of Intellectual Property, Copyright, and Trademarks

  • Date: Sat, 12 Jul 3:00pm – 6:00pm
  • Location: 7th floor, SICSR, (Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research, near Om Market, Model Colony)

The issue of Intellectual property, patents, copyright and Trademarks is an important one these days, especially for the product startups and companies.

There is a general lack of awareness and knowledge about this in the startup ecosystem in Pune and India in general.

This session from PuneStartups (POCC) will is aimed at providing the basic knowledge and know-how of IP, Patents, Copyrights etc.

Session Outline:

  • Introduction to all forms of IP with emphasis on Trademarks: Patents, Trademarks, Geographical Indications, Industrial Design, Copyright, Trade secret etc.
  • Patentability and Patent filing procedures in detail.
  • Panel Discussion: Details will be put-up soon.

About the Speakers:

Mrs. Archana Joshi: Archana is an IP Associate & Patent Agent at IPFACE, a Venture Centre initiative. She has been a Senior Technical Officer at Aquapharm Chemicals Pvt. Ltd.(June 2004- Nov 2005).

She has done her P.G. Diploma in Patents Law from NALSAR University(Hyderabad) and also completed an “Introductory Course on IPR”, distance learning from WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), Geneva.

She is also a Registered Patent Agent at Indian Patent Office.

Ms Pallavi Joshi: Pallavi is an IP Associate and Patent Analyst, IP Facilitation Center (IPFACE). Previously, Research Associate Fellow (IP) at Dow Chemical Intl. Pvt. Ltd. Pune. She has done her PG Diploma in Patents Law from NALSAR University, Hyderabad and also Completed an “Introductory Course on IPR”, distance learning from WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), Geneva.

For more details, see the event page at http://punestartups.org/events/event/show?id=1988582%3AEvent%3A338237 after a few days.

About PuneStartups

With over 13000 members, PuneStartups (aka POCC) is the largest forum for startups and entrepreneurs in Pune. It is an open forum, and anyone can join for free. See the <http://punestartups.com. for more details.

Fees

This event is free and open to all. Please register here: http://punestartups.org/events/event/show?id=1988582%3AEvent%3A338237

Please double-check the date/time/venue of the event at the above link. We try to ensure that PuneTech calendar listings are accurate, but occasional errors creep in.

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Pune Cocoa Meetup: Understanding Bonjour and Peer-to-Peer networking

  • Date: Sat, 12 Jul 3:00pm – 5:00pm
  • Location: Synerzip (3rd Floor, Revolution Mall, next to City Pride, Kothrud, Pune)

Apple’s Bonjour is a “zero configuration network” (Zeroconf) multicast Domain Naming System (mDNS) protocol used by Apple devices to enable the automatic and easy discovery of computers, devices, and services on IP networks. Bonjour (like other multicast services like Avahi and Microsoft’s UPnP) uses industry standard IP protocols to allow devices to automatically discover each other without the need to enter IP addresses or configure DNS servers. The elegance of this approach is that it brings simplicity and ease-of- use to the users of network devices and services. Eliminating the need to set up services such as Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, DNS, and DNS Service Directory, Bonjour enables each device to continuously publish and discover services. By broadcasting Bonjour service messages, printers, servers, and other shared devices can advertise the services they offer. Client devices then monitor Bonjour advertisements and connect to the appropriate servers, as with any other service. The protocol also allows for a device to request services (Service Discovery) on the network as well as respond to incoming requests, which in some cases means a single device can be both a client and a server at the same time. The automatic discovery makes it easy for clients like iPads and Macbooks to easily use a printer using AirPrint or mirror a display to a projector using AirPlay

About Pune Cocoa Meetup Group

This is a group for Cocoa Developers for Mac OS X, iOS; who eat and drink Objective-C and are passionate about Apple Technologies. I started this group as a place where Apple Fanboys can share thoughts and enjoy. It’ll be restricted for hands on iOS, Mac OS X Developers/QA initially, let’s come together & share.

Fees and Registration

This event is free and open for anybody to attend. Please register here: http://www.meetup.com/PuneCocoa/events/189208702/

Please double-check the date/time/venue of the event at the above link. We try to ensure that PuneTech calendar listings are accurate, but occasional errors creep in.

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Liveblogging the POCC meeting on Usability

I’m liveblogging the Pune OpenCoffee Club meeting on usability. About 30 people in the room now. These are quick-n-dirty notes, not really well structured. Hopefully in a couple of days, more coherent reports will emerge from me or other bloggers. For background on some of the speakers, see the meeting announcement page on punetech.

Jhumkee: This field started around World War-II. Aircraft accidents. Instead of saying that pilots are idiots, the engineers decided to change the design so that mistakes don’t happen. Instead of engineers designing a system by themselves, involve the users in the process. Don’t just think about what they want. Instead, ask them. Or watch them using the product.

Military, aerospace, and other fields really embraced this field. In India, this is a fairly new field. Especially in IT.

But it is common sense.

Shashank: In the era of electronics and IT, it is very easy to put in new features. This is a problem. In general, in most product companies, engineers first create a product, and then go around looking for users who are interested in that product.

But adding features, normally results in reducing usability. So, especially for small startups, there is a choice to make – add features or add usability?

Harrshada: How did you start your startup? Did you find a need and try to fill it, or did you have a cool technology/algorithm that you wanted to implement? Usability says that you should always have a target audience in mind, and work towards solving their problems. Your technology is not the important part. Constantly be in touch with users and keep observing them.

It’s rather trivial to say that we should keep users in mind when designing the product. But, how to actually go about this?

Jhumkee: You must get a real user, and then there are a number of techniques that are used to get information out of the user. First of all: You are not a user. Many designers of systems are under the impression that they are a user. Because, they are actually using their own product. In fact, Steve Yegge argues passionately that you should only build products that you yourself want. But, the problem is that as you are designing the system you become an expert. You know everything about the system. You are not a regular user. Hence, you must spend time with real users.

Shashank: There is a science behind this. There are a bunch of techniques for doing this. Some of them are obvious, and some hidden means by which you can get usability information out of users. You need to think through this process. But it doesn’t have to be anything very fancy. Interview your users. Ask open ended questions about what they were trying to achieve, what they felt, what made them happy, and what frustrated them. Use this to determine some broad areas of concern, and then start digging deeper.

Jhumkee: There is no silver-bullet here. Some of this comes from experience. A lot of this differs based on the But there are some broad guidelines. It must be an iterative process. Make changes. Test with real users. Repeat.

There are a lot of guidelines on individual things (e.g. font sizes, navigation architecture, accessibility factors) etc. But you can’t simply apply them without a deeper understanding. Because usability is a holistic thing. Even if the parts are all OK, the whole system might still not be very usable.

But, the guidelines are a good starting point. There are some good basic guidelines at Yale. And also at usability.gov.

RouteGuru: Usability is a huge issue for us. How to present information about an entire route in SMS form, and how to do this in a way that the route gets built up in their head. Another big hassle is the 80-20 problem. The last mile is significantly more complicated than the rest of the directions. Also, some users are only interested in the last mile, as they know how to get to the general vicinity. Others want all the directions. We are still grappling with this issue.

Somebody I don’t know: For usability, keep only one action per page. One page should be for one purpose only (except for the home page). If there is a form, there should be only one button. Use a tool from google that is used to serve two layouts of the same page to different users and then study their behavior. Use this information to decide what works and what doesn’t.

Shashank: This last technique is a very quantitative mechanism. Analytics, heat-maps, etc. give you a lot of data. You don’t always know how to use this data. The world is moving towards qualitative analysis.

Manas: Users don’t always know what they want. So how do you handle this?

Jhumkee: What you do is task-based analysis. Find out what the users want to do, and then figure out how long it takes them to do it, and whether they get frustrated doing it, and whether they are successful or not. This will give you good insights. So the real work is in figuring out what these tasks should be.

Unfortunately, I had to leave the meeting at this stage to get back to my kids. Hopefully I’ll be able to fill in the gaps with notes taken by someone else.

Pune OpenCoffee Club meeting on Usability/UI – Aug 23

What: Pune OpenCoffee Club get-together. Informal meeting to discuss UI, usability etc.

When: Saturday, 23 August, 5pm

Where: SICSR, Model Colony. Here is the map.

Registration and Fees: This event is free for everyone, but you must register by sending an e-mail to manasgarg at NOSPAM gmail dot com

Details:

The general agenda is to have a free-wheeling discussion on various aspects of UI development including (of course not limited to) tools/methodologies for quick prototyping, usability aspects etc. Jhumkee Iyengar, Shashank Deshpande, and Harrshada Deshpande (with a combined experience of 40+ years in design and usability) have graciously agreed to be present to guide the discussion.

Jhumkee Iyengar has been doing design and usability since 1988, in IT, manufacturing and other industries, most recently in Persistent Systems, where she created and grew the usability group. She also launched usability in e-Governance and is responsible for improvements in PMC’s websites. She is also a presenter for the Nielsen Norman Group, and conducts usability workshops all over the world.

For more details about Jhumkee, see her linked-in profile.

Shashank Deshpande Shashank has been in the field of IT usability for 15+ years (yes, he has been doing usability since before it became a known/popular field in India). He was the head of usability at Symantec India (formerly Veritas) for 9 years. Just this week, he is returning from conducting a 4-day workshop on usability at Yahoo! India. For more information about Shashank, see his linked-in profile.

Harrshada Desphande (not related to Shashank!) has also agreed to be present to guide the discussion. Harrshada has 9 years of experience in managing user experience design in the IT industry – most recently in SAS R&D. She also organized the hugely successful IdeaCamp Pune.

For more information about Harrshada, see her linked-in profile

We are hoping to get another couple of experts in this field. I’ll post that info as soon as we have confirmations. Stay tuned.

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