#Humex a.k.a #HumaneExperience | That one minute

Google Maps, one of the most carefully crafted user experiences (and constantly evolving) IMHO. Just look at these two screen grabs and what do you notice?

One says '1 hr 1min' to go and then in a minute, it changes to '1hr'. Doesn't seem like a big deal right? But it is. Good #ux is always an after-thought.

Good UX is always an after-thought

Look at it from the technical developer's eye. Normally the code would be something like (in layman terms) :

           print ('x' hr 'y' min)

Imagine what this would print in the scenario of '1 hr'?

          '1 hr 0 min'

Ha ha ... it sounds so much normal from a developer's viewpoint, but so weird from a normal person's perspective, isn't it?

Imagine your Maps telling you "You have 1 hour and 0 minutes to go!" ; sounds absurd, isn't it? Here's where I often insist my team to look at data as that which has 'life'. It's real, its heart is throbbing. The developer needs to look at it that way. The data is so real and has so much meaning to the person who's consuming it. So what is 'normal' to the developer (1 hr 0 min, here) is not important. The developer has to think deeply on what is 'normal' to the 'real person' out there (1 hr, in this example here) in the real world who is consuming your data.

What is 'normal' to a technical developer may not be 'normal' in the real world

Many a times, simple things like these go a long way to fine tune the #userexperience of your application and make it more humane. Attention to detail is so vital in crafting humane experiences in the world of bits and bytes! :)