Mumbai Suburban Rail Ticket Vending Machines

A user writes about his experiences and makes some pretty smart recommendations too!

Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

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Rediff Books: Spaced out?

So did I enter numeric data or not? I did, only, I inserted a space. If I am not wrong, the field does not allow spaces between numbers. The error message should read "Spaces not allowed." or something like that. But, this error situation should not occur in the first place. Why can't Rediff tell the user BEFORE the user enters data that spaces are not allowed? Better still display an example of the accepted format? I wanted to buy the latest Chetan Bhagat's book. But looks like I will shop else where for it. Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

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Dell Vostro 1310 Screw-up

Looks normal, right? Look at your own keyboard... notice anything different? Okay, maybe you don't. But try actually typing on this and it all becomes far too apparent. The whole of the bottom row of letters (Z, X, C...) is one too far to the right. The Z should be below and between A and S, not S and D. You're looking at a brand new Dell Vostro 1310, ordered the day after its released, and delivered on 30th April 2008 in the UK. They keys are all there. Shift, \|, Z, X... its just that the left shift is too big, forcing everything over too far. The Z has to be between the A and S... look on ANY other keyboard and that's where it sits. This is not a US/UK layout issue, just a general monumental flaw. [read more]

Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

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Happy to Help? Really?

Vodafone claims it is happy to help. Take a look. Click on the pictures to enlarge them. It is not enough if you deploy a CRM solution that's worth a zillion. How can you disable my account just because I didn't log in for 180 days? You send me your bills, and I pay them too; So, why should you disable my account doggy? Sometimes a little common sense goes a long way.

Recommended Books on Usability write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

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Ubuntu Desktop Usability Issue 1

I have decided to log all user experience issues that Ubuntu Desktop throws to me, a Windows user.

1. "Setting up my broadband Internet access is cumbersome or at least it appears so."

The way Windows XP handles this is not any pretty, but it would have been nicer if folks at Ubuntu had at least provided a Windows-like UI to perform this rather crucial task.

Recommended Books on Usability write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

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Ubuntu

Hey! I love this!

Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

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What's in a last name?

If you try to download a white paper from http://www.comparecrm.com/ you need to fill a form (yawn!) before you can start the download (it fires the PDF on the fly and thus chokes my damned browser!); if you have initial(s) for a last name. God save you! The all-knowing designers of comparecrm.com think a last name has to have more than a single letter. What's the big deal? Read this!

Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

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101 Five-Minute Fixes to Incrementally Improve Your Web Site

The guys at insidecrm.com claim:

These quick tweaks will help you keep visitors engaged.

101 Five-Minute Fixes to Incrementally Improve Your Web Site

Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

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Apostrophes in Names Stir Lot O' Trouble

It can stop you from voting, destroy your dental appointments, make it difficult to rent a car or book a flight, even interfere with your college exams. More than 50 years into the Information Age, computers are still getting confused by the apostrophe. It's a problem familiar to O'Connors, D'Angelos, N'Dours and D'Artagnans across America.

(via AP) Well, well, well! There's another problem with online forms: quite of few of them return an error message 'last name can't be a single letter' when I give it as 'R'. I can't help it but south Indians have initials for last names. For example, mine is R as my dad's name is RanganathaChari! When Niall O'Dowd tried to book a flight to Atlanta earlier this year, the computer system refused to recognize his name. The editor of the Irish Voice newspaper could book the flight only by giving up his national identity.

Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

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Firefox VC++ Runtime Error

One more for the Hall of Shame! Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

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