Marissa Mayer at Google Press Day Paris

better late than never :)

Marissa Mayer, VP, Search Products and User Experience, gives an A-Z of search explaining how Google is working to ensure all its users get access to fast, relevant results, at Google Press Day in Paris on June 19, 2007.

Google's Recipes Search

How to cook something delicious? am hungry now? How long will it take to cook for my number of guests? How much fat my food has? How to make a Italian food with more of protein and less of sodium?

These are the questions arise in our mind very often. Now Google has answers for these in their newly launched service by Google in Recipes search.


Its a dream search to any one. At present you won't get results with all criteria selected, but will be a good resource for recipes in future, say in weeks. Google's Recipe search is simple and intuitive. For e.g. click on any "drop down" menu and see the wonderful space savers. Its a multi select list item and to save space check box is shown under the drop down. This type of form interaction is also used in iPhone. This saves ton of space by replacing a long list of checkboxes. Tiny URL to Google Recipe search: http://tinyurl.com/2ox7xw

Another Interested point here is more option appears next to search button in selection of few criteria in drop down. More option appears after the search button. Its a nice way to show prominence to the fields showing it as optional.

Google recipe search for is contextual. User will get recipe based on cooking Keywords, cuisine, main ingredient, course, preparation time, meal type, servings, calories, total fat, total carbs, sodium, cholesterol, source, saturated fat, fiber, protein.

Google recipe search is yummy yummy!!!

Yahoo Mail Vs. Google Mail - Which is best? Answer is here...

Two month before, we did a comparative study on Yahoo Chat & Google Chat integration with their email services. Below table has the differentiation between Google & Yahoo's chat integration with email. Gmail was good in this front.

Also see:Chat integration in E-Mail: Google Vs. Yahoo

In HCIIDC Interaction designers group, lots of discussion were happening under the topic "The better email - Yahoo mail or Gmail? Anirudha Joshi posted a nice explanation Yahoo Mail or Gmail in HCI IDC forum.

Digital Inspiration has posted video on Walt Mossberg of WSJ posted Vlog on same topic. Walt Mossberg is saying that Yahoo Mail Beta is better than Gmail & Live Mail.

These discussions will help us in lots of design ideas & insights.

Yahoo Mail Vs. Google Mail

HCI IDC is one of and only Interaction Designers group of India. HCI IDC group is popular among Indian IT companies and User experience professionals. It is so popular that total Number of members count in HCIIDC will say total number of interaction designers in India. This group is moderated by Anirudha Joshi - Indian HCI Guru.

There were some hot discussions going on about the best email services i.e. Yahoo Mail vs Gmail.

I request every one to join the HCI IDC group. For those who are not member of HCIIDC, I have copy pasted Anirudha's reply on that topic. Its nice & here you go -

Here is Anirudha Joshi - Indian HCI Guru reply on that topic
Back in 1999 in the hey-days of the dotcom, at a seminar in IDC, there
was some corridor talk about how Yahoo! had emerged as a leading
search engine, and everyone (including myself, I confess) thought that
Yahoo! has a fantastic momentum and no one can touch it now. We were
all wrong - and Google proved it.

Personally, gmail is my favorite webmail service (and I have been
through Yahoo, Hotmail and our own Squirrle Mail in IITB, though not
recently) but I must admit that gmail took some getting used to.

The concept of labels was different in itself. But gmail disturbed one
other of my important email habits - before gmail, I used to 'leave
behind' actionable mails in my inbox till I was done with them. So a
blank in-box meant that I have been a good boy. A swollen one meant
that I have things to do. Even if you label a mail, it still stays
behind in the in-box, so in gmail this didn't work. But I got over
this one by changing my habit - I created a label called to-do and
started labeling only those emails that I had something actionable
from my side. Voila, I discovered that I have fewer to-do mails than
not-to-do mails. That actually reduced my labeling / filing effort
(though my mind went through the usual resistance curve before I hit
upon this solution). Now my swollen inbox merely means that I have not
downloaded a backup to my hard disk in a while.

So gmail forced me to change my habits, which might sound contrary to
user-centred design, but it isn't. Allow me to explain. Email is a
frequent, long-term use application to most people and in frequent-use
apps, it may be OK to compromise learnability with speed of use of
frequent tasks. (If you don't use email frequently, perhaps gmail
isn't going to come in the way - only frequent users file if at all).

And I have some data. In my teaching, when I talk about designing
'known products' I give the example of gmail. At this time, I usually
ask if there was anyone in the class who did not have a gmail account.
Ever since I started asking this question, I have not yet found a
single person who doesn't. (The same does not apply to almost any
other email product, though I must confess that data is not rigorous
there).

So why does everyone (in my class) have a gmail account? When gmail
was launched, it was certainly not the first webmail app. There were
dozens of free webmail apps around for over a decade and anyone who
had an email account already had one. So here is an attempted answer:

OK, gmail had a few of technology firsts - one GB email was a big draw
(many people first associated the name gmail to that) and so was AJAX
- it saved a lot of round-trip times (e.g. expanding the reply box
in-line, attaching a file in-line etc.). And of course there was the
automatic contact building that was Google page-ranked (not
alphabetically sorted). Then there was integrated chat that was added
a few months into the product. But all these technology features were
fairly quickly copied by other, established providers. What's more,
gmail still does not support IMAP (and I used IMAP for a while, just
before I switched to gmail). So technology and features is not the
answer.

Gmail also had an interesting marketing first (at least for webmail
products) and this one was completely counterintuitive - you COULDN'T
just sign up, you had to be invited and had to have another email
account. I remember this made a big buzz for a few months after the
launch, and I think the curiosity ensured that many who had an email
account managed to get themselves an invite and gave it a try. The
fact that Google was already an established brand of young, cool
technology helped.

But all this has now become passe, but gmail continues. Why? One
answer could be thread view, and this is true at least in part -
though there are many email products that support thread view, none
are in the sense of gmail. Thread view in gmail actually saves me time
(for example, this thread was lying in my in-box for the past 10 days
with dozen+ replies, but I could read it all in one go, in context,
and then reply - other thread views that I have used in the past
required me to still open each mail separately).

In the end, I think everyone in my class still has a gmail account now
due to its (as has been pointed out) better information visualization
and less visual clutter (though I find the colours and rounded corners
a bit dated).

So, in summary, you don't have to be the first to make a 'dent in the
universe' (it helps, but you don't have to be). You don't even have to
be 100% compatible with what exists - 80% will do just fine. Thinking
out of the box, breaking the rules, brand and clever marketing plans,
including viral effects, help to get you a foot in the door. What
sustains in the long run is good, simple design that works and solves
real problems.

So, do you think you can beat gmail?

Anirudha

Innovation & User Interface

Douglas Merrill, talks about innovation at Google. Good video to watch.

Response blog - Bad Thinking: Web redesign is bad strategy

This is the response blog to Gerry McGovern's Blog on Web redesign is bad strategy

My views are little different from Mr.Gerry McGovern blog on web redesign. To begin with Google homepage is not the relavant example to showcase in this scenario. First of all, what we see in google home page is only search. In many interviews Merrisa has mentioned that, Sergy has end up designing this Google UI because he was not expert of design & HTML. And we should not take google home page Except Google & Ask all other website in the world has bucket full of content & channels in the home page.

Lets take the example of Yahoo! or msn or aol's home page or any site in www. As web evolved these design of these websites matured & interaction changed. Check the Yahoo! home page screenshots taken from webarchive.org and look at the design transition from 1998 to 2007. Most of us would have seen this. Still have a look at the design change below. And we can't expect the Yahoo to retain the same design of 1998 till date.

Yahoo website in 1996.

Yahoo website in the year 1998

Yahoo website in the year 2000

Yahoo website in the year 2002

Yahoo website in the year 2005

And today's Yahoo website - 2007

Nice redesign, some nice new graphics and colors alone are not part of the redesign of the webpage. Most of the redesign is the result of customers feedback, sales result, business conversion rate and sticking with latest technology. Redesign always shows the healthy sign of the business and the brand. Look at sony, Nike, Coke or any websites. Its like automobile manufacturers coming up with new design of cars every year. Its like evolution of man from ape.

Redesigning is nothing but its repainting and fixing/changing furnitures once in 5 years. Since the technology grows faster and customer needs more changes, the websites are redesigned once in every year or two. Martin Ringlein's comment is good.

Also Read:

• Chat integration in E-Mail: Google Vs. Yahoo
• Yahoo! Mail : Unlimited storage - thoughts !!!
• Froogle: Now called as Google Product Search?
• Google Maps: Draggable Driving Directions ?
• Firebug 1.05 for Mozilla
• Yahoo maps is also the phone book
• Crop, sharpen, make pictures pop. Get the free Google Pack
• Adobe Dreamweaver cs3 - Review
  

Google Testing New Homepage Design in Taiwan, Hong Kong

Google Inc. is testing a new homepage design in Taiwan and Hong Kong that takes advantage of faster broadband speeds in those markets, one of the company's founders said Thursday.

"We're actually now experimenting with trying new kinds of homepages, for example in Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, that are a completely different type than we've tried before on our U.S. site as well as our European sites," Sergey Brin, a co-founder of Google and the company's president of technology, speaking to investors during a conference call. Read more on pcworld

Learn How SEO Works

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This video will help you to get more knowledge on Search Engine Optimization.

Search Engine Marketing isn't something that many people do. This isn't optimizing your Web site so it shows up high on Google or Yahoo. It's coming up with strategies for how to advertise on search engines and then executing on those strategies (buying keywords). Guys like Jeff Figueiredo are the kinds of people who the search engines love because they decide where to spend tons of money. Anyway, this is an interesting conversation with Jeff Figueiredo, senior strategist atPointIt, a search engine marketing agency based in Seattle.

Google Maps: Draggable Driving Directions ?

http://maps.google.com - now you can change customize your driving directions on Google Maps by simply dragging & dropping the default directions to your preferred roads or highways, route around traffic, or add multiple stops on your way.

In the real time not sure how much this feature is going to help. One should be familiar with the location to change the route. But technology wise its cool. Already google is providing a shorter route to reach a place. Who is going to change the route to just drive along the coast spending the petrol/ gas. Don't know how useful this feature is, suggest!!!

Also Read:

• Google Product Search
• Listen to News - International Herald Tribune

Human Computation

Luis von Ahn is an assistant professor in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University, where he also received his Ph.D. in 2005. Previously, Luis obtained a B.S. in mathematics from Duke University in 2000. He is the recipient of a Microsoft Research Fellowship.

ABSTRACT Tasks like image recognition are trivial for humans, but continue to challenge even the most sophisticated computer programs. This talk introduces a paradigm for utilizing human processing power to solve problems that computers cannot yet solve. Traditional approaches to solving such problems focus on improving software. Luis advocate a novel approach: constructively channel human brainpower using computer games. For example, the ESP Game, described in this talk, is an enjoyable online game -- many people play over 40 hours a week -- and when people play, they help label images on the Web with descriptive keywords. These keywords can be used to significantly improve the accuracy of image search. People play the game not because they want to help, but because they enjoy it.

Luis describe other examples of "games with a purpose": Peekaboom, which helps determine the location of objects in images, and Verbosity, which collects common-sense knowledge. Luis also explain a general approach for constructing games with a purpose.

Unlimited Yahoo Mail

We all know that here on Yahoo mail has unlimited storage. This graphic animation is very nice in Yahoo mail.



Also Read:

• Yahoo! Mail : Unlimited storage, it’s coming!

Another Video on Web 2.0

Using the Web 2.0 write up in Wikipedia this video is to help teach educators about Web 2.0 tools.



Also Read:

• Web 2.0 in just 5 minutes
• Tagging That Works - O'Reilly Web 2.0 Expo
• Another O'Reilly Web 2.0 Expo Slide from Rashmi Sinha
• Jacob Nielson - Web 2.0 'neglecting good design'
  

Usability Testing for Google Products

Google is conducting usability user testing for some of their products. If you are interested to attend, click the link given below. Google is spending lots of money on testing products. They conduct Survey, Focus group, Individual interview, Usability study and other type of usabiltiy study

You can opt any of the following:

• Travel to a Google office to participate in a study
  (most studies are done at our HQ in Mountain View, California
  but may also be done at our other offices)
• Participate in a study remotely, from my computer
  (you must have a high-speed Internet connection)
• Google researcher come to visit you
  (field study)
• Fill out an online survey
  

I read this news in Labnol.

Blogger Study: Sign-up for Google Study
Other Google Products: Sign-up

Also Read:

• Dreamweaver CS3
• Vista Widget for windows XP
• IPod is not good for heart - A study

Trends and innovations in Web Usability

Trends and innovations in web usability, user interface design, visual design, graphics, interaction design, and best practices.Video of Interview with Marissa Mayer, VP, Search Products & User Experience, Google

Marissa leads the product management efforts on Google's search products – web search, images, groups, news, Froogle, the Google Toolbar, Google Desktop, Google Labs, and more. She joined Google in 1999 as Google's first female engineer and led the user interface and webserver teams at that time. Her efforts have included designing and developing Google's search interface, internationalizing the site to more than 100 languages, defining Google News, Gmail, and Orkut, and launching more than 100 features and products on Google.com. Several patents have been filed on her work in artificial intelligence and interface design. more...

Google Video:

Also Read:

• Crop, sharpen, make pictures pop. Get the free Google Pack
• Adobe Dreamweaver cs3 - Review
• Unread disclaimers & policies
• Froogle: Now called as Google Product Search
  

Usability 2.0 WebGuild Event

Overview of Usability 2.0 event:

The WebGuild organized event on Usability 2. Google & Yahoo! also participated in Usability 2.0 event. What is the next generation of web usability? What are some of the usability gains and challenges arising as a result of Web 2.0 technologies such as Ajax; how is usability viewed within companies today; and what is the ROI of good usability practice. Learn about the next generation or evolution of usability from usability 1.0 to 2.0 and beyond on the web including what has changed, and what are the challenges and the implications for designers, developers, users, and marketers. The panel will also speak to top usability trends, best practices, usability dos & don'ts, techniques, processes, quantitative versus qualitative considerations, etc. to creating highly usable and successful sites and webapps. Learn from the pros in charge of highly successful sites how to make your webapps and sites highly usable and successful!

The video is featuring few eminent speakers - Sean Kane (Netflix), Jon Wiley (Google), and Luke Wroblewski (Yahoo! Inc.).

Google Video:

Also Read:

• Chat integration in E-Mail: Google Vs. Yahoo


• IPods is not good for Heart - A study says


• Crop, sharpen, make pictures pop. Get the free Google Pack


• Adobe Dreamweaver cs3 - Review


• Unread disclaimers & policies


• Froogle: Now called as Google Product Search

Yahoo! Mail : Unlimited storage, it’s coming!

Yesterday: Free Mail : Hotmail was a revolution in 90's
Today: Wow Mail : Yahoo, Live & Gmail
Tomorrow: Unlimit Mail: Yahoo!

Yes, Yahoo! mail is coming up with unlimited storage. When storage meter disappears, means you have the unlimited mail. Its a revolution in eMail and there won't be any storage meter here on..

We were so happy by seeing GMails "Counter" adding .000005 bit of data per second. After Yahoo!'s Announcement, no 2nd thought and we won't be enjoying the counter incrementsssss.

You tube is the forefather for this revolution (giving unlimited free space). After you tube, Microsoft is coming up with online storage. Now Yahoo Mail with Unlimited storage.

Not sure how many of our email counter has touched the 2 GB mark. Sure we can expect from Live, Gmail & other companies too.

Negative side in unlimited email storage !!!

Does unlimited storage option really help us in mail management? Does Yahoo! has guts to increase the attachment limit from 10MB to 50 MB?

More the mails we are going to receive/send and more the difficulties we are going to face in managing. It will be a pain to manage large volume of mails in 4 years from now with the existing Yahoo! email information architecture. This is the time for Yahoo! to introduce Tagging in Mails (like Gmail)

Also Read

• Firebug 1.05 for Mozilla
• Chat integration in E-Mail: Google Vs. Yahoo
• Yahoo maps is also the phone book
• Crop, sharpen, make pictures pop. Get the free Google Pack
• Adobe Dreamweaver cs3 - Review
  

ITS FREE: Create PDF for your documents and Excel sheets

We generally use Adobe Acrobat Writer to create PDF file. If you waste your time inquiring your offices buddies on software availability & you waste time finding machines in your office which has Adobe Acrobat Writer installed. Its a good idea for you.

How to create PDF of your Document and Excel sheets FREE?

You should have Google account and here on its simple. Go to http://docs.google.com and login with your user name password. You will login to Google Docs & spreadsheets. You can create new Documents or Spreadsheets or you can upload your documents or spreadsheet into Google Docs.

Once your documents are loaded, click File and "Save as PDF". Now your PDF is ready :)

Also Read:

• Chat integration in E-Mail: Google Vs. Yahoo
• Yahoo maps is also the phone book
• Windows Vista - Design Ideas
• Froogle: Now called as Google Product Search
• Crop, sharpen, make pictures pop. Get the free Google Pack

Chat integration in E-Mail: Google Vs. Yahoo

We did a comparative study on Yahoo Chat & Google Chat integration with their email services. Below table has the differentiation between Google & Yahoo's chat integration with email. (Blogger misaligns HTML table, so provided as image.)

Click on the below image for the larger view.

Click on the above image for the larger view.
Overall comparing with Yahoo, Google seems to be easy to use and simple & Google wins the race in integrating chat with mail.

Also Read:

• Firebug 1.05 for Mozilla
• Chat integration in E-Mail: Google Vs. Yahoo
• Yahoo maps is also the phone book
• Crop, sharpen, make pictures pop. Get the free Google Pack
• Adobe Dreamweaver cs3 - Review
  

iGoogle - A Personalized Home.

iGoogle is a new service from Google where you can personalize your own home page. Its similar to yahoo & Live.

iGoogle is very light & personalization changes based on the time in your location. Provide the zip code and it will do the rest. Atpresent IGoogle provides 7 themes to customize. And these themes are mostly seasonal. You can create your own Gadgets & share it in your friends iGoogle.

There is no much difference with other Personalization pages in iGoogle except the fact that its light and downloads faster than other sites. Other features of iGoogle aer

The wizards let you enter the settings for seven new gadget templates:

1. Photo album - add up to 7 photos that can be rotated.
2. GoogleGram - enter seven greeting messages.
3. Daily Me - type what you are doing.
4. Countdown - count the days until a special event.
5. Simple list - you can use it as a ToDo list, shopping list.
6. YouTube videos - up to 10 videos.
7. Freeform gadget - add an image and some text.
   
   Through gadgets you can stay in touch with your friends: if your friend in Gmail contacts creates gadgets you'll be able to see them in a new section of iGoogle called "My Community".
   

Design Ideas

You can upload your pictures while creating Gadgets. It is not simple in iGoogle to upload your own pictures. In web we are used browse images through browse button to upload images. Which is missing in IGoogle & you have to copy paste the path in the text area. This feature is not usable.

Other issues in iGoogle:

Some gadgets through a error message after adding like this.


Call outs doesn't come out from location it is being clicked. Call out design is broken and it looks strange in Google website.
More links:

• New Google Product Search - A Flaw?
• Wikipedia 0.5
• Website Rating
• The URL for the service – google.com/ig .
• Google Personalisation workshop: Gaget maker and more

Yahoo maps is also the phone book

Phone book in Yahoo Maps

There are some situations: we know the address & we will not have phone number. Yahoo messanger has provision of getting phone numbers for any offices/shops in US and Canada. There were many scenarios and I have tried checking phone number in Yahoo it was successfull. (home phone number doesn't appear in map) Google map doesn't have this feature.

Write notes in Google Map:

In the Google Map Print page there is a facility to write notes. This is very helpful to write any landmark of the destination or any personal info or even the phone number. I always note the destination number. (if in case I miss the route, I can call them).

Yahoo map didn't really bother to add this feature. In real scenario, you can write your notes anywhere on the page with pen. Incase if you didn't find pen, then you will feel google map is better to take notes.