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Archive for August, 2010

ANDROID- THE LATEST DEVELOPMENT BY GOOGLE

17 Aug

Android, the latest revolution in mobile technology, developed by Google is a unique platform consisting of an operating system, a middleware and a user friendly interface. It is an open source technology i.e. it can be extended giving (developers/users) a freedom to create and customize applications,  they can add or  delete programs, download applications from the web and install in  Android OS cell phones, customize phones in different styles, can change the home screen, display styles, upload videos, use photo applications, choose web browsers for browsing, can have alerts, Other than this various  Android applications include video facilities, spreadsheets, PDF applications, music downloads, Wi-Fi systems, Facebook, news reader, games, internet radio, hundreds of such applications are available because of which many developers are showing interest in creating android applications.

Since android is developed by Google, it comes with lot of pre-installed Google services like Gmail, Google calendar, Google web search and Google as the default web page for the browser. Android is built on the basis of developing applications that can make mobile phones act like a mini PC, when you use Android, you hardly need to switch on your PCs almost everything is given access through an Android phone .

Android also has a touch screen feature though it does not support multi touch. To activate an android phone one needs a data plan to be enabled on top of a voice plan. Android is somewhat a philosophical opposite of  iPhones. Where the iPhone tries to create the best user experience by restricting hardware and software standards, Android tries to insure it by opening up as much of the operating system as possible.

Many Cellular companies are signing deals for using Android OS in their cell phones . The open handset alliance which is a global alliance between technology and mobile industry leaders, is stepping towards developing a new breed of mobile devices allowing a far better user experience than current mobile platforms that provide a greater degree of openness and thereby enables developers to work and collaborate in ample of ways.

All in all android is an exciting platform for consumers and developers which probably will give a tough competition to the existing phones in the years to come and also giving user’s multiple options for selecting the phones suiting their styles.

Interactive Bees an Affordable and Professional Web Design and Web Development Company in India

 
315 Comments

Posted in Mobile Technologies

 

Type of content liked by kids in a website

05 Aug

Kids like content that is entertaining, funny, colorful, full of multimedia effects but make certain that the content is pertaining to their age though. It should be engaging, informative and yet simple so that the child can relate with it.

Kids do not read paragraphs of text, so keep the text to a minimum and use images to the max which can be of the water, trees, sky etc. or cartoon characters, bold and vivid fonts, colorful backgrounds as bright colors easily capture and hold a child’s attention for longer period of time.

It has been seen that animation and sound effects often create a good first impression that encourages kids to stay with a site as they are usually found scrubbing the screen with the mouse to enjoy the sound effects played by different screen elements.

We found bigger differences between boys and girls behavior. Most of the boys do not like reading the instructions and are attracted to loud colors, cool and funky stuff like cars, bikes, gadgets etc. and spent more time alone with computers. In contrast, girls like sites with good instructions, bright colors like pinks, relates more to fairy tale characters or dreamlands  and  spent more time using computers with a parent.

Websites aimed at kids are mostly Flash-based as it provides a great degree of interactivity, making the website more like a game or puzzle which kids enjoy. It should implement a number of elements and design principles that create an environment suited for a child’s personality and interests.

While designing a website directly for kids or towards parents one should keep in mind that the organization and layout of the site should be simple so as to provide a user with an experience that is intuitive, and gets users to what they want in the least number of clicks.

Interactive Bees an Affordable and Professional Web Design and Web Development Company in India

 
841 Comments

Posted in Web Design and Development

 

Dos and Don’t for Designing Kids websites:

05 Aug

Now a days millions of children use internet and the number is increasing day by day. Many websites specifically target children & even mainstream websites are adding “kids corner”.

Despite immense growth in users and services, very little is known about how children actually use websites or how to design sites which cater to their requirements?

At Interactive Bees while developing & designing websites we try and understand the target audience fully, their browsing behavior and then try developing the products which fulfill their requirements.

After doing an extensive research on what are the pre-requisites for kids websites, we realized that Kids are easily stumped by confusing sites, hence the website has to be very simple. Children are usually incapable of overcoming many usability problems and quite impatient so websites must avoid technical problems or crashes because when kids face an error message either they ignore them or close the window and simply leave the site or find something else to do.

While designing websites for kids certain navigational features which one should definitely keep in mind are:

Navigational Issues

The user interface for homepage design and navigation systems should be simple and straight forward and should let the kids get to the content as simply as possible. Use of funny images in the navigation should be encouraged as the children are naturally drawn to simple, obvious, and recognizable objects.

Avoid Inconsistent navigation options, where the same destination is referred to in different ways, causing visitors to reach the same feature repeatedly.

One should keep the language simple, as using fancy wordings and fonts in interfaces will confuse kids and prevent them from exploring that feature.

Interactive Bees an Affordable and Professional Web Design and Web Development Company in India

 
55 Comments

Posted in Web Design and Development