USID 2007 - hyderabad

I am back from hyderabad, after attending the USID 2007 conference. It was my first conference in usability/design. All I had to do was sit, listen and eat. My paper on 'Digital Identity' selected for publication got me a free entry into the conference. And the speakers who came from varied backgrounds have left me satisfied. First I'll jot down the points which I liked about the speakers I liked. And then what fun I had in hyderabad.

M.P.Ranjan: He is a professor in NID. And his concepts of design are so clear. This clarity becomes obvious when he asks questions which are so poignant while not being stumblers for the speaker. And he has got to a stage where he is more beneficial in macro design, that is pushing for design policies to the government, etc.

Ravi Krishna: I was not very excited about e-learning. But his talk was an eye opener. In most e-learning programs, there is the concept of an instructor, which we have incorporated just to translate our offline experience online. But is that really necesarry. For a different media the options could be different. He talked of formats taking the example of tv news programs. Of how news has changed from, news readers reading to us >> talking to us>>people to us>> people talking to people, etc.

Kentaro Toyomo: Works with microsoft, in enabling technology in rural india. He too has a sense of design which takes into account other factors like socio economics factors etc..into account. I learned a thing or two.

Lalitesh Katragadda: As google india head, gave us an insight into google. how things work there. Google india maps was launched his year while I was launched in US around 2 years around. The reason he gave was, ppl in the US navigate using road names, while in India most ppl use landmarks. This fundamental difference brought the question of which landmarks to include.

Also went around hyd a little. Saw Hussein sagar lake, smoked some hukkah in 'My cafe latte', and ate boti kabab roll under the charminar. (*thanks to gajju for the ride and being the perfect host :)