Angels don’t always stay in heaven!
What could be the best way to spend a Sunday when you have nothing much to do and the company grants an allowance of Rs. 750 to party? Well, our team (the Old Cask) decided to party in a different way. How about spending a Sunday with a bunch of kids and having a good lunch with them?
We decided to go to the Angel's orphanage at Shivaji Nagar - Bangalore, on 18th December 2011, which houses around 72 kids. First I wasn't sure how the day would be (Trust me, I had a very bad experience in this). Soon I reached there, I realized that the day couldn't be any better.
Kids really change your mood and I was lost in them in no time. They got acquainted to us in minutes and there was no "ice".
We soon started playing Tambola and every kid was well involved in the game. I taught a bunch of kids how to play chess, though I am not a great player myself. We distributed chocolates and played cricket with them. We (I and Karthik) tried conducting a quiz competition and things back fired on us. We couldn't answer the questions of the kids (This is embarrassing!!)
A grand lunch was organized for all of us there by our team and we distributed sandals for the kids as requested by the caretaker Ms. Sabina.
Thanks to every team member for the wonderful effort. You made the day not only for the kids but for me as well. My contribution is of no significance compared to your efforts.
Few thoughts that struck my mind:
These kids don't have a very good place to stay. They are cramped up in a place that is actually small for these many bunch of kids. Their daily meals are almost the same. Everyday in each kid's life is a routine. Nevertheless, invariably you see contented faces when you talk to them.
What does it really takes to make one happy? Money? Tour? Grand meals? It is the feel of being wanted. It is the affection, care and love being exchanged. This feel is amazing.
You can hear the same story from Vinod here and can hear it Soumya Dutta's camera here.
Now let me come back to the title. Angels don't always stay on heaven. They make heaven wherever they stay!
Photo Courtesy: Soumya Dutta and Vinod
To change or not to change UI
My conversation with my friend about the release of iPhone 4S in India gradually led to a friendly argument between iPhone UI vs. Android UI. My friend was pointing that iPhone has a boringly same user experience with the same set of gestures and actions, where as Android has "configurable" user experience that makes usage of Android phone interesting every day. And incidentally I bumped on this page which says If You Don't Change the UI, Nobody Notices.
So here I set foot to figure out what makes a good user experience. Is it simple and consistent UI like iPhone or ever-changing UI like Android?
Customizable designs can fish you out from the boredom of monotonous user experience and every time you look into the product it makes you feel "new". But, in reality, when there is a drastic change in the way the user interacts, the user's experience changes altogether. The user is rather forced to remember than to get adapted. This holds good not only for mobile phones but for any product which aims to give a good user experience as well.
I am a fan of minimalistic design and "Keep It Simple", I always do prefer a consistent design over something where changes are very frequent. These consistent simple designs are meant for ease of use. As a simple exercise, try changing the layout of menu of your phone (List to Grid or vice versa) or shuffle the icons randomly in your desktop and figure out how much time does it take to get accustomed to the new "design". Another example would to, consciously remember where do you look for login when you go to some frequently visited sites and where would you look next if the login wasn't there. All this consistency gives the user a comfort with the product by getting adapted to it rather than to remember things everytime some changes occur.
Coming to iPhone UI vs. Android UI, Apple controls the user experience of iPhone/iPad with an iron hand. Apple enforces strict guidelines for the UI design for an iPhone app through app store rejections. So there is consistency in the apps, no matter what they do. Android, on the other hand, is an open eco system. This very idea has enabled every manufacturer to "create" a different version of Android which is manufacturer specific and hence the same app would look different on different phones. As Android Gripes say,
"When I use an iPhone and an Android phone at the same time, I often find that apps from the same company look a lot different on these two platforms – the ones on Android usually look much worse."
I don't mean to say that Android UI is totally bad. There are many an app that looks great on Android. But since there are various "adopters" for Android, the number of these good looking apps are less in number compared to iOS. These numbers definitely need to go up, for which there needs to be a standard that lets developers to become more aware about "user-experience" as iOS developers.
The Apple Gardener
The world has survived a month after its loss of a great visionary, Steve Jobs, who has changed the world with his amazing products. Ironically, Jobs has received a greater media coverage posthumously than what he got in the last few years since the launch of the iPhone. Everything that happened in the last 30 days was put against Jobs demise, from Dennis Ritchie to the hundreds of hunger deaths in Africa.
Let me not pretend that such incidents never happen and/or are of mundane importance. Nevertheless, these have nothing to do with Jobs as well. I was really tired of people talking about Jobs' personal life, his temper, his family and accusing him of every point they know. So I decided to write my views on it.
To start with, I would give my take on Malcolm Gladwell's article on Jobs. He claims Jobs to be a tweaker. Well, as a matter of fact, he is. Amongst so many products in the markets, Jobs' (Apple's) product was set as the benchmark. I have never heard of a phone being called as "Android killer" or "Windows phone killer", but every phone in the market wants to be an "iPhone killer" (though none has actually succeeded or even close). It was through his ability to attain perfection by tweaking, was he able to release the first touch phone that never needed a stylus. The iPad revolutionized the way the world looked at Tablet PCs. The MacBooks were the inspirations to many notebook developers to "innovate". So, Mr. Gladwell, if you say tweaking/re-engineering is a easy road to attain fame, please ask the person who proof reads your writing or try tweaking something to perfection.
“There are parts of his life and personality that are extremely messy, and that’s the truth,” Powell tells Isaacson. “You shouldn’t whitewash it.”
Yes it is. Whose isn't? It was the Jobs family who contacted Isaacson for writing the biography and contributed with content for the major part of the book. They never tried to whitewash the facts or hide it. They very well knew that nobody on earth was perfect, neither was Jobs. Like everyone, he was a package. You need to accept him as a whole package. You cannot accept his passion for design and perfection, leaving his temper or personal life.
"Jobs wasn't great. He wasn't even close".. Well, some are just hopeless.
I might be called as an Steve's Fan boy, I never mind. I am, in fact, even proud of it because I love perfection and so does late Mr. Jobs, and hence Apple. He might not even be a genius, but a techno-visionary, who had an eye to foresee for what people would want. Mixed with his aesthetic design and packed with the knack of user experience, he drove Apple to deliver those elegant products. Tim Cook, may fill his shoes as an eminent CEO, but there is none who could replace his role as a visionary and designer.
Had John Galt been real and Jobs been alive, Galt would have chosen Jobs to be taken first to Atlantis by now.