Front End UI Design

A front end user interface design is a very important element of any web application or for that matter any software application which involves interaction with users. The attributes of good design are quite similar to  physical applications and gadgets. The concept of a UI design can be looked fundamentally from a human interaction model. How the system builds the notion of two way communication with the user using the system. The important elements of UI design are mainly

• Visual Display
• Workflows

Visual Display

Physical systems can use other sensory elements like sound and smell apart from visual cues to

Role of Persona in Product Feature Definition and Decision

A persona is a fictional character which is a representation of a set of potential customers. Persona, the term is used in the book "The Inmates are Running the Asylum" by Alan Cooper. The basic paradigm shift that comes with the usage of persona is "If I would have done this, I would have done that way" to "How the persona would deal with that situation". If you think, it's a major shift in the way we think. This takes you closed to the paradigm of think like a customer. Usage of persona makes the process easier. 

Persona are usually given names and face but be careful about that. In the process of giving name and

Hundred dollar test

Suppose you are making a new product and wondering what all features are important and what all are not so important. If you ask an end user, he will say he needs everything. He might give some idea of relative importance but it many times does not gives a clear picture of his inclinations. It usually turns out to be free flow of thought. And when you talk to more customers, the picture becomes murkier. Hundred dollar test helps in bringing sense to all the possible features that can go into product. However before hundred dollar test, you would want to screen the list and come up with a small set of features. For the initial screening, one can do market study or some sort of survey. For hundred dollar test to be effective, you might want to be ready with the list of possible features which you can give to your customers. Also customer sample is important as you might want to make a sample of the true representation of customer universe, otherwise the results may get skewed in some direction.

So how does hundred dollar test works. The idea is very simple. You have a list of features that you

Building a Product

I have been involved in the building of Products in the past and in present, but more from the angle of a technical executor. However this role has provided me an opportunity to work closely with Product owners and Product managers.
I think any product building and managing process has to be looked from four different perspectives. Each perspective has to work in tandem with each other for the success. The perspectives are as follows: 

Functional perspective

This is where the classical product management function sits. Also can be loosely termed as domain expertise, though it is more than domain expertise. Domain expertise is a must to develop a functional perspective, but more than that it requires a strong vision about the future of how things are going to evolve. For example, take the example of a movie. The genre of the movie, or the basic idea is what makes the functional perspective. In the case of software, it's about nailing down the requirements and use cases to last bit. What we are trying to make and for whom we are trying to make?

Structural perspective

The structural perspective is more about the actual building blocks of the element. It's the mechanics, the engineering behind it. I think it's very important to have a strong structural perspective of how the things will be going to be. In a movie making process, the structural perspective is the script, the screen play, the cast and in Hindi movies the songs. In Software, it's about technology choices. Open source vs proprietary. Which platform. To be on cloud or behind firewall. It involves your deployment scenarios and the ecosystem in which the software piece is going to sit and work.

Process of building perspective

This is the place where everything starts falling in place. It's where the things start taking shape. It's about choosing locations, arranging junior artist, making sure that the actress mother is kept happy at shooting locations. In software building this is about processes including development, QA. The process of alphas and betas. Make sure you have the right tools and people in place to do Software development. Nothing can replace good execution.

Financial perspective

Many times in the process of product building, this is which gets missed most often. This is true when movie is being made or the software products are being made. The financial perspective here is not so much about cost control, but about whether we can sell the things at the end. This is where finally things make or break.

The corollary is if you cannot sell it don't even think of making it.