7 posts tagged “webservices”
Now you can check train time tables & availability on Cleartrip.com (www.cleartrip.com/trains). Although you cannot book the tickets from here, you can atleast get the status of the availability of seats right upto the Waiting List number. Another interesting feature is that you can check the route of the train with respect to all the stations it passes through !! :) It's exciting for me since I never ever figured out how to read the Train Timetable book that the Indian Railways publishes. This makes it a whole lot easier :)
Here's a snapshot of how it works.
Just came across this awesome vectorizing web service from Stanford called VectorMagic. My first and foremost 'delight factor' is the simple fact that I can use the service without signing up. In about 3 minutes of landing on the home page of the website for the first time, I was well on my way to downloading a vectorized file in .EPS format after having uploaded a .JPEG on VectorMagic.
With do-it-yourself services like there coming up, DTP (desktop publishing businesses) need to figure out ways to provide more value than just image editing capabilities, etc.
Here are a few initial screen shots.
An excellent blogging site. Along with Cleartrip.com, Instablogs has become my second favourite Indian website ! There aren't too many well designed India webservice sites online today. Instablogs kicks ass for many international sites as well. No discrimination intended... but who would have imagined a family run startup from Shimla would come up with something as awesome as this...Bravo!
Netvibes the webservice that allows you to make your own personalized feed aggregator/startup page has done it again!
I hope the designers at Netvibes as working on the ASAP because it won't be too long before the aha! wears out and people start pointing fingers! :) Until then... enjoy!!
However it would be ignorant and brash of me to assume that they have not considered this totally. I understand that there needs to be some level of difference to characterize the application itself. (you can't have a powerpoint application looking similar to an excel sheet application or a chat application!)
BRANDING:
The Zoho logo along with the branding of the specific application always appears on the top left of the screen.
USER INTERFACE:
Although I accept designing a variety of applications with UI can be hard, I do not think that it is impossible. The Zoho Suite has a global navigation bar (consisting of text links) on top of the screen that allows the user to move across the different applications. However this is the only place where there is UI consistency. Apart from this the buttons in each web app have different styles, the menus are in different places, some applications have tabs to navigate, some have free floating buttons, etc.. I am not proposing 'consistency for monotonous experience' but 'consistency for intuitive experience'.
Here is an example. (See enlarged version of image above)
If you look at the above image, you will see transparent yellow boxes over each header. Those yellow boxes mark the spaces on the header of the application UI where the button (Create/Upload/New/Add) to start a new activity specific to that particular application is placed.
The image below is a collection of those yellow boxes representing their location on the header of their respective applications.
As a user I might be used to seeing the 'New' action (which will allow me to create a new word document) on Zoho Writer on the left-hand corner in a bevelled capsule styled button. When I decide to start using Zoho Sheets or Zoho Notebook, it would be a lot easier for me to transition to that application if the New Sheet/New Notebook actions represented in the same space and in the same style, and not as a tab.
Familiarity is a key factor that affects the usability of any object or service. Personally, I have noticed myself rejecting services (as useful as they might be) due to the amount of learning involved in understanding the new interface. In my opinion Zoho should use familiarity to its advantage and standardize a few key actions. This way many first time users will not get intimidated by the learning curve required to begin using the service.
Seems to me like they are going to give Google Docs and 37 Signals a run for their money if they play their cards right! Both these companies do have their own unique advantages - 37Signals being a pioneer in the online collaboration space has its own advantages and signature simplicity of design while Google Docs has the biggest advantage of the large Gmail user base, therefore getting more visibility.
But there is plenty of space for competition in the 'online desktop & workspace'. Individually, the ZOHO applications are not as meaningful as they are together. Although I've just seen the Zoho suite at the surface level I'm only hoping that they have integrated these apps internally to provide the user a seamless experience.
And this is only the beginning !! :)
There have been many experiments on innovating email but
this takes the cake! I An email mailbox represented as a 3D, virtual
LAX airport. Check it out yourself on the 3D Mailbox site.The best thing I like about this program is that based on the origin or destination of
the email, each message is depicted by any of over 80 world airlines
(e.g. for India it comes via. Air India, UK, it comes via Virgin or British Airways). Emails with
attachments are carried by the couriers: FedEx, UPS, DHL, and CargoLux. There is also a seperate jet for spam mail.
This seems to be a downloadable program and needs to be bought. I
really wonder how many people must be using this currently. To me
things like this almost seem too gimmicky and although this would be a
great information visualisation student project, I don't think many
peolple will use it. I'm sure Intel Dual Core weren't built to spend
processing power on such apps!
So..your Inbox is an airport ! Now I wonder if it also simulates bandwidth speed delays or slow process speed delays as fog delays and other annoying delays that makes airports hell !! :) Imagine wanting to send an urgent mail and receiving a message - "We regret to announce the one-hour delay in departure of 20:55 Flight GM203 leaving for Peter Petrelli's inbox . The flight will now depart only at 21:55" ! :)
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