Entries from March 2007 ↓

We have had a good start to MainBhiBookie. More than 200 people have already registered in the last 3 days and there are a lot of lineups added. People are challenging each other and we have been getting good reviews from early users. The World Cup has just started, so if you missed taking on a challenge about the world cup matches with your friends, start today.

Attention to detail is what distinguishes an average performer from the best. I was sticking up address labels on some postcards yesterday, and a friend showed shortcuts! Rather than peeling off each label, we could take the whole sheet, stick the edge of the label on the edge of a table, and then quickly take off each label and paste it on the postcard. At the same time, pasting the label using both hands and positioning it just above the line that separated the content area from the address area on the backside of the postcard would give the best alignment.

This was a simple task, but because we could break it down into smaller tasks, find out the best way to do each task, and work as a team, we could do the job much faster. Attention to individual items and thinking about small details gave us the edge. As they say, devil lies in the details.

I am surprised to see that so many people don’t really pay attention to details. Even on important tasks. It just doesn’t occur to them! Do you pay attention to small things in your tasks?

Are you a cricket fan? Do you challenge your friends about the match outcomes? We do that very much during the World Cup! So we setup a website to let you also do that! MainBhiBookie allows you to select lineup of three batsmen, three bowlers, man of the match and winning team. You then challenge your friends for selecting their lineup. Once the match is over, the system will calculate and award points. And you will come to know who amongst your friends won the challenge.

The site is launched today in beta mode, one day before the world cup begins. We are going to keep enhancing it as we go. I invite you to register and start playing! Let’s see who’s better!

By the way, there is no money involved in challenging your friends! There is no money you have to pay to the site either. You can be on the first page of MainBhiBookie if you are scoring better than others! And you can easily invite your friends to setup their own lineups and challenge with you!

Start by registering on Main Bhi Bookie!

As promised, here’s the post on IRCTC - India’s largest ecommerce site. I tell you how it does not work, and how we can make it work! Last Thursday, I decided to go to Ahmedabad for some work. Went on to IRCTC to book a train ticket. I logged in, and entered the date of the travel and selected other options to find out what are the available options. What came up after two minutes’ wait was a blank page. I backed up and tried it again. And it asked me to login again. Did that, filled up the travel plan, and tried again. Blank page again!

Tried with another browser, same blank page. After struggling for an hour, I could finally see the list of available train. New screen, new challenges. Now the availability check option kept giving me blank pages. Or “Not Available” status. If there was no reservation possible in that train, why show me that option in the first place?

My commitment to book the ticket was higher than the tantrums the IRCTC site kept throwing on me. After about three hours of efforts, I could find a train and reservation option combination that was available. Went on for the online payment. Entered the credit card details. I was happy that finally my ticket will be booked. Hit the submit button, the system told me that it’s processing the payment. The next page came up, and said “Communication failure“, the payment was not processed. It said I could go to my “Failed payments” page, and see the transaction.

Too much to expect! I did not see the transaction in failed payment page either. What that means, is I have to now start the whole thing over again, pray god that things go smooth, and be a privileged customer to get a ticket!

This, after charging a fee for online reservations, and being the number one Indian ecommerce website. Sucks!

I know IRCTC has changed the way we book railway tickets. No more waiting in long queues to book tickets, no more paying high charges to the agents and all that. Frankly, IRCTC did deliver on the promises in the initial years. But lately, it’s been just too slow, just too difficult to use, and it simply doesn’t work!

It doesn’t work again and again. Over the last one year, I have booked more than 50 tickets using the system, and have had problems on more than 40 of them. That’s an 80% failure ratio.

Today, if you wanted to get a ticket through IRCTC, you better be prepared to spend 3 hours on it, or do it at 7AM (which is when I succeeded in getting that 20% success).

Frustrated with this experience, we sat down to find a solution. We developed a small rich internet application that will make the entire rail reservation process easier. We expect it will bring up satisfaction levels by 75% or more.

We wrote up a note about this and sent it to IRCTC officials. Contrary to my expectations, they did like the proposal. They agreed that some of the points mentioned, have been on their list too, but they have limitations. Primarily because the backend provider - CRIS - has certain limitations.

I am not willing to buy in these limitations. IRCTC really has a strong value proposition, and it’s a shame if we put brakes on the usage by clunky technology. I say it’s the right time to upgrade IRCTC/CRIS technology. People have been tired of the system for more than a year, and we deserve a better IRCTC!

Checkout the note and the prototype below. Post your comments and ideas here, and we will have IRCTC take notice.

You can download the full report here, and can see the “new and improved” suggested booking process here.

Bruce Tognazzini writes about 10 most wanted design bugs. The list includes computers shutting down on power failure, items dimming out in menus, the Mac OS X Dock, non human URLs and more. It’s really an interest read (it has to be, coming from an expert!).

Here’s an example:

Bug Name: Power failure crash

Duration: >30 years

Supplier: Desktop computer manufacturers

Alias: “Oh, Sh–!”

Product: Desktop computers worldwide

Bug: If the computer loses power for more than a few thousandths of a second, it throws everything away.

Class of error: “That’s the way Grandpa did it…”

Principle: Protect the User’s Work