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Do you need a START button on Windows Mobile?

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Windows Mobile 6.1 is just released and it has some nice interface tweaks and supposed to be more stable and faster than windows mobile 6. Its a great mobile OS due to its familiarity and compatibility with Windows for desktop. However Microsoft has never given much thought to user experience I guess.

I understand that windows mobile resembles windows in many ways and that probably makes adaptation easier but it probably goes too far with windows resemblance that it ends up being a non-userfriendly mobile OS.

I fully agree with Kevin Hoffman that Windows Mobile is a shrunken and crippled version of windows. I don’t see any value of a Start button on a Mobile OS. I have a few suggestions for Windows Mobile User-Experience team:

  1. Please remove the Start Button, its not needed.
  2. Show big, finger-friendly icons for various applications right on Home screen.
  3. Reduce number of screens and taps required to do various things.
  4. Please do away with tiny text labels and other little user interface elements wherever possible.

I think MS can borrow ideas from Palm, Symbian and other mobile OS. All of them seem to adhere to more or less same user-interface concepts.

Has Microsoft got it’s Mobile strategy wrong???

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We are a Microsoft shop primarily and we do mobile applications targeting Windows Mobile OS, and we may continue to be a Microsoft technologies company in future too owing to mass popularity Microsoft manages to acquire due to various reasons.

However I simply hate the fact that MS keeps adding layers and layers of complication to all its products, making softwares bloated, complicated, frustrating and slow. There has been enough bashing of Windows Vista as well as Windows Mobile 6. I have read them and been silent all this while, however when I read about Side-Show making its way to windows mobile, I simply could not resist writing this post.

Mobiles are meant to start immediately on press of power button, while desktops are not, so I don’t think side-show is a requirement on mobiles at all. You can just push the power-on button on mobile and press a pre-assigned key to start your favourite application. Why you need an always on and smaller display for it???

I think MS has got its strategy wrong here. Its again trying to make mobiles do whatever a desktop can, which I think is not a clever idea.

Also I guess that in future MS will use Sideshow as an excuse for slow windows mobile powered phones. With all the features it is putting in windows mobile, its going to gradually become slower and slower even with faster processors, so MS will say — use Side-show for features which you want to perform immediately 😉

I think Side-show adds another layer to complicated user-interface and makes users much more confused. In my opinion its a very bad idea.

IMHO MS should instead try to make windows mobile interface simpler, faster and easier to use. I still love the simplicity and performance of Palm OS. I know Palm OS is loosing its ground to Windows Mobile but we need to give the credit for what it offers.

Scrum and Gandhigiri

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It was interesting to know about discussions Pete Deemer had with would be CSMs in his recent certification class. It was both inspiring and matter of feeling proud as he beautifully described how relevant Gandhism (Gandhigiri in lighter sense) is to the role of ScrumMaster.

Below text is what Pete posted in scrumdevelopment yahoogroup:

For those who weren’t in the class, the question was asked “How can the ScrumMaster have any power or influence, since the team doesn’t report to them, and they don’t have the authority to give orders?”

We talked about how in the absence of “managerial” authority, a ScrumMaster can still have enormous influence. But it’s earned influence, and it comes from gaining the trust and the respect of the team, by serving them zealously, and protecting them courageously. This isn’t the cheap authority that comes with an fancy job title; it takes time and work to grow, but it’s a lot more hardy and deep-rooted. And we talked about models for this out there in the world — starting with Mahatma Gandhi, a man who through courage and a spirit of selfless service changed the course of history, all without ever having a high title or powerful position.

Necessary But Not Sufficient

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I just finished reading ‘Necessary But Not Sufficient’ by Eli Goldratt. Its basically a Theory of Constraints (TOC) novel for IT. I am thankful to my good old friend Arun Sahlam for lending me this great book.

It establishes a novel concept which says that technology is necessary but it’s not sufficient. It basically means that if we don’t change our old business rules along with the technology we may never get full benefit out of a new technology. For example in a big manufacturing company estimating requirement is a mammoth task so when this was being done manually, companies adopted approach of doing this calculation exercise only once a month.

After many years when they started using software, they didn’t really see any improvement in output. Reason was not the software, it was because company was still doing this calculation exercise once a month when they had means to do it every week.

This book talks about how new age software companies which will ultimately command majority market share will not only be selling software but convincing and educating their customers to change their age old business processes as well. Only this combination can succeed in long run.

Interestingly book also says that how software developers earlier and some still do take pride in producing a sophisticated looking system because that kind of proves that they can create some technically complicated stuff like that. Truth is however that a complicated product does not always mean a good product and a simple product does not mean that its not useful or is not technically advanced.

A case in the point is Google, which still happens to be one of the most simplest yet technically advanced website. So our responsibility as software developers should be to create simple, straight-forward products which user can learn quickly, yet it has all the power and functionality that’s required from it.

My suggestion to everybody involved with software development is borrow or buy but do read this great book.

The Goal

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I just finished reading a book called ‘The Goal’ by Eli Goldratt.

Its a novel but has become best selling management book. Its a story about one Alex Rogo, who is a plant manger for a manufacturing company. His plant is making losses and going to be closed down if he does not turn it around within 3 months. Needless to say he turns it around into a profit making plant. But it was not simple. He thought, made changes in the plant and did troubleshooting with the help of his teacher cum friend Jonah.

This is simply one of the best books I have read. I learned following things from the book:

1. Many times solutions to problems are plain common sense but we are too tied up with what’s called common practices that we either ignore them or don’t dare to implement them.

2. We should not treat any organisation as something which you can improve by improving efficiencies of each individual of the organisation. Local optimus theory simply does not work. We need to ensure that individuals work well in synchronization. Sometime it even helps a company if certain people are sitting idle than trying to ensure that everybody works full time.

3. The book really gives a very good idea about how a company boardroom functions. How managers interact with their employees and how they manage a big company.

4. Also worth learning is how patiently Alex Rogo handles the family pressures and tries to bring her wife back when she leaves him as he could not give any attention to her.

Whoever among you runs some kind of business should read this book and if you run a manufacturing company or part of such company you must read this book. You can take my words for that. Please let me know your thoughts about the book if you read it or have read it already.