The occasional light expression

I usually don’t get excited about new technology launches (yes, I admit, I’m not a technology ‘early adopter’) - the iPhone launch didn’t give me goosebumps, the Nintendo Wii didn’t register till much later and i discovered Adobe Buzzword, Microsoft Photosynth and Google SketchUp much later than most people did.

And yet, I’m excited about Google’s proposed Chrome browser : - ) As a longtime member of the Internet community (which hasn’t switched to Safari), I feel we could do with some excitement in the browser space. The buzz is already quite strong - from ZDNet to the Guardian and Telegraph to Techmeme - lets see how Chrome fares. I hope Google outwits the Google-bashers!

A few weeks back, I had an  interesting discussion with Akhila Seetharaman, journalist with TimeOut Bangalore about the field of design and user experience and its relevance for our everyday life (including in Bangalore). We spoke about the Usability Professionals Association (UPA) Bangalore(which I head), the growth of the User Experience community in Bangalore in the past 5 years, good bad and ugly products and services and experiences in Bangalore, and the role design can play in improving all of these.

My friend Sarit Arora from Human Factors (also head of the ACM SIG on Human Computer Interaction and CHI Bangalore) also joined me for a morning chat with Akhila at the Indira Nagar Coffee Day. TimeOut recently published Akhila’s article - you can read the article on TimeOut’s website.

The article covers topics most of us are familar with: Globalization, the rise of the creative economy, the importance of design and story telling and how the design and User Experience field has evolved in India. It also lists products and experiences we’ve all struggled with or appreciated in India: kick-starting scooters, filling in paper forms, the Indian railways website, cleartrip.com and such.

I actually quite enjoy reading TimeOut - their last issue was a retrospective on 30 years of the music scene in Bangalore - a very interesting read!