The Comptoons

HCI Vistas presents cartoons that illustrate the interesting relationship between the human and computer.

Katre, Dinesh S. HCeye (2006). Humor>Computing>Human Computer Interaction

A Position Paper on Cross-Cultural Usability Issues of Bilingual Mobile Phones

Variety of information services like Short Message Service (SMS), e-mail, news, market reports, educational applications and other reading materials are now available on mobile phones. The size of mobile phone and its display is shrinking day-by-day, whereas the volume of information content and services are growing. More importantly, mobile phones introduced in the Indian market have now become bilingual; they support various services in English and Hindi languages. Mobile manufacturers have consciously or unconsciously resorted to English oriented approaches, and as a result of this, they have diluted the culture specific rules and the original form of Hindi language. We have studied the usability of Hindi in four bilingual (Hindi and English) mobile phones manufactured by different companies like Nokia / Reliance 3105 CDMA, LG RD5130, Motorola C118 and Samsung / Reliance C200.

Katre, Dinesh S. HCeye (2006). Articles>Usability>Localization

UniFace: Internet-Based Software for Remote Usability Testing of Icons

The Graphical User Interface (GUI) of software usually consists of huge number of icons. Though the intention is to improve the usability of software, not all interface designers are able to test and evaluate the comprehensibility of icons. Increasing exposure to unevaluated icons causes cognitive fatigue to users and slows down the intuitive learning. Users from diverse geographic locations, cultures and religions are very likely to interpret and understand these icons differently. As software products are designed to address universal needs, testing and evaluation of GUI across the globe or at least, wherever the product is likely to be used becomes important. Creation of dedicated usability labs in various locations for usability testing is not a viable proposition. A software tool named 'UniFace' for remote usability testing of icons is designed capitalizing on far-reaching capability of Internet. UniFace extends the usability lab onto the desktop of every user.

Katre, Dinesh S. HCeye (2004). Articles>Usability>Testing>Online