The way people access information online is evolving. Google reports that by next year (2013) more than half of website visits will come from mobile devices rather than desktops or laptops.
Not only is the medium of accessing the web changing, the needs of most mobile users going online with their smartphone or handheld device is changing as well; becoming more focused and task oriented.
Today’s smartphone owners use their phones to perform specific tasks such as checking locations of destinations, public transit schedules, and bank balances. While internet browsing on handheld devices does occur (especially when standing in really long lines or waiting for a bus) many people prefer to surf the web from the comfort of their home or office.Screen space is limited on handheld devices, and mobile users are busy, often multi-tasking as they search for information online with one thumb or finger.
For these reasons, mobile site navigation is even more crucial than navigation on a traditional website. Understanding the questions and needs of the typical site visitor, the limitations of their device, and what will frustrate them, is crucial for effective navigation design on a mobile site.
What are mobile users asking when they go online?
Compuware’s 2011 study What Users Want from Mobile found that 95% of users were searching for local information with their smartphones or handheld devices. It would therefore be good practice for bricks and mortar businesses to feature navigation to their location, hours and contact information prominently on mobile sites.
Put yourself in the shoes of the typical site user. Take a look at the analytics for the mobile traffic. Choose the top three or four categories users look for and select category names that reflect the most common searches.
If this is a mobile site for a bricks and mortar business, display a button for location, and contact information prominently.
You can always add a link to “visit our website” and the truly interested can look at a more elaborate version of the mobile site in the comfort of their office or at home with their laptop.
7 For All Mankind know their users.
Designing for a different environment
In addition to the parameters and distractions of the external environment, web designers must also evaluate the devices themselves when designing navigation elements.An architect wouldn’t advocate exactly the same building design for the middle of the city, desert or forest, a good web designer considers the opportunities and limitations of the mobile environment to create the most usable navigation for mobility.
The problem, of course, is that the designer doesn’t know which device the end user is holding when he visits the site, a situation that can be addressed using responsive design tools such as CSS media queries to address issues of location, size and adaptable content. Whether designing a brand new mobile site using responsive design or adapting an existing site for mobile, there are still certain best practices that hold true for navigation.
Navigation menus for the small screen
Web designers know that mobile users behave differently when accessing the web on their smartphones and handheld devices than they do on their desktop or laptop computers. Finding space for navigation on a small screen can be tricky, but with a little careful planning mobile navigation design is achievable.With just four navigation buttons and the toll-free reservation number prominently displayed, Loews Hotels mobile site is user-friendly and easy to navigate.
Best practice 1: reduce the number of menu buttons
This can be tricky when designing a mobile-friendly version of an existing website, particularly one that has many links in the desktop design. Limit your main navigation buttons to five or less, adding nested menus if necessary.
Best practise 2: reduce the number of taps
Keep the number of actions to be performed on a mobile device to the minimum. The fewer taps and clicks to find what the user is looking for the better. It is too easy to make a mistake. Always include an easy to find back button: you don’t want to frustrate the user further.
Best practice 3: scrolling navigation
Keep the most crucial navigation elements at the top. Mobile devices have different screen sizes, so think carefully about the importance of each category as the ones further down the list may require scrolling on smartphones with less screen space.
Best practice 4: stackable buttons
Mobile users see your site in portrait instead of landscape as they do on a desktop. Adapt your navigation for the mobile web by presenting it vertically. Read down instead of across. This works best for sites with no more than five categories in the menu, and when it is unlikely more categories will be added.
Best practice 5: nested menu
Sometimes known as collapsible navigation, this is a good option for sites that require content on the screen as well as a menu, and those that expect to add categories and menu items.
Optimizing mobility navigation for touchscreen and tiny buttons
Touchscreens and tiny buttons mean new considerations for web designers. Mobile users don’t have the luxury of a clickable mouse to pinpoint a tiny menu button or link. They are at the mercy of their fingers and thumbs, which means they are pointing to areas on the screen with much less precision than if they were using a mouse, and can get easily frustrated if their tapping isn’t yielding immediate results.
Web designers can make navigation easier for mobile users by adding more space around menu links, or by replacing the links with buttons for menu categories.
Making it larger makes it easier to find an area quickly and click it with a tiny phone button, or tap it with a finger or thumb. As the average finger requires a clickable area of at least 44px x 44px, this may result in the buttons and navigation areas overshadowing the rest of the content on the screen. However this may suit the purpose of the website and user, especially if the home page content is secondary to the major menu items.
Ideally, the design should allow the touchscreen user to make the navigation button larger if required.
Tips for optimization
Set the menu at the top or bottom of the screen, depending on the main purpose of site users. If they are looking for content and likely to scroll, putting the menu at the bottom gives them another place to go on your site rather than leaving the site for a search engine or competing site.Partially hide the menu to accommodate other content on the screen, revealing the full menu when users tap it. This keeps the menu front and center without obliterating useful content.
Place a Menu link at the top of the screen, and add a navigation button to the bottom.
Tall and thin may be great for supermodels, but in mobile web navigation short and wide is beautiful. Wide short navigation also helps when you have longer category titles – text fits better.
Reduce the height of header images or replace them altogether with a smaller logo to increase space for navigation.
Keep branding and design issues consistent by paying attention to typography, color, and the style of navigation buttons instead of using up valuable space with large graphics and images.
Shorten up the text, especially on menu buttons and category titles. In some cases this is extremely difficult, and a stackable menu with room for more text on each line is a preferable alternative.
Simplify as much as possible. Remove as much from the homepage as possible to focus on only providing the top few items most users want.
Mobile navigation no-nos
Mobile users are busy, distracted, and on the go. They don’t want variety in their choice of which buttons to choose and you don’t want them to become frustrated and leave the site due to analysis paralysis.Don’t give them a lot of choice.
Avoid horizontal scrolling, and no hovering! Slider menus can also be frustrating to mobile users. In your quest to simplify and streamline navigation, don’t think you have to be boring. Creative navigation isn’t a bad thing, but it must be intuitive. The user should be able to easily see where to go to find the information they want quickly.
Conclusion
The relative newness of mobile devices as a method of accessing the web means that mobile navigation is constantly evolving as different designs are tried, tweaked, or thrown out altogether.What works for one set of users on one site may be a disaster with a different site as the information the user searches for is completely different. Additionally, the same user approaches different sites with different purposes: a mobile user looking at a news website on her phone most likely wants headlines, not contact information; which is precisely what she does want when she visits the mobile site for her dentist or hair stylist.
While navigation elements for a mobile website may differ from a traditional website, the purpose is the same: web visitors have a question when they go online. Where is the store? What’s happening in the world? What’s my bank account balance? Great navigation leads users to the answers quickly and simply.
Meet their immediate needs and they will return, increasing traffic to the website, making your clients happy and leading to referrals and more mobile web design business for you.
Digital keyboard image
via Shutterstock
If there’s one thing that drives me insane online, it’s when input forms allow me to enter incorrect data, only to point out the mistake after I try and submit it. It seems like half the forms I submit have to be refilled and submitted over again because I didn’t include an uppercase letter in my password, or I did, or the password can only be numerical, or some other requirement nobody thought to mention.
The way the brain works, we look for solutions based on the tools in front of us. You don’t enter uppercase letters at the ATM do you? No, because the ATM keypad only has numbers. You might hit the wrong number by mistake, but you’ve never tried to enter your email address, or your mother’s maiden name.
Therein lies the problem, the keyboard that you use complicates inputting data online. It probably has between 75 and 100 keys and even more characters are easily accessible by holding multi-key combinations. Using it to log into Facebook is rather like popping out for milk in a Ferrari.
Of course, your keyboard has to have more input options than any particular form field requires, because it’s a multi-use tool; you can’t practically have a different keyboard for every possible type of
input.
This leads to a serious usability issue: users are constantly being asked to ‘correct’ their information to suit a form. That’s a great way to increase frustration and lose business.
Touchscreen devices have made great strides in this area by modifying the onscreen keyboard to tailor the types of input possible, to the data required; enter an email address on an iPhone for example, and you won’t be able to enter a space by mistake, because the spacebar isn’t provided.
Until we’re all working on touchscreens, we need a temporary solution, and there’s actually quite a simple one: using jQuery we can slip a layer of intelligence between the keyboard and the input field and only accept the data if it falls within expected bounds, ignoring anything outside those bounds, confident that it’s an error.
First, we need to set up an input field in HTML that we want to restrict, a phone number for example:
<fieldset>
<label for="phone">Phone:</label>
<input type="text" id="phone" />
</fieldset>
Then, in the document’s head, we need to import jQuery:
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8/jquery.min.js"></script>
And immediately afterwards add the following script:
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function() {
$('.phoneInput').keypress(function(key) {
if(key.charCode < 48 || key.charCode > 57) return false;
});
</script>
This script runs once the document is ready, attaching a keypress method to the .phoneInput input field. We then detect which key has been pressed based on its charCode property — the number 0 is assigned the code 48, 1 is 49 and so forth — any key that’s outside our range should return false. If the method returns false the browser will simply ignore the keystroke.
This means that if the user hits any key that isn’t 0–9 the input will be ignored, effectively restricting the input to numbers.
We can apply the same technique to almost any field, building up complex rules using logical AND and logical OR. For example, if we wanted to restrict input for a surname, we would need to restrict input to lowercase letters (97–122), uppercase characters (65 – 90) and the occasional hyphen (45):
$('.surnameInput').keypress(function(key) {
if((key.charCode < 97 || key.charCode > 122) && (key.charCode < 65 || key.charCode > 90) && (key.charCode != 45)) return false;
});
This code is a progressive enhancement. It will take some of the strain off your server validation, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t also validate information you’re gathering.
Prevention, as the saying goes, is better than cure; and using this tip you’ll see a reduction in the number of people who start, but don’t complete your forms, especially when complex data requirements are involved.
Google Chrome, Firefox and other browsers hide passwords behind asterisks but you can easily view the saved passwords using the built-in developer tools.
Say you are on the Gmail login page and the web browser, as always, has auto-filled the username and passwords fields for you.
This is convenient because you can sign-in to your account with a click but because you have not been typing these saved passwords for a while now, you don’t even remember the Gmail password anymore.
All web browsers, for security reasons, mask the password fields in login forms behind asterisk characters thus making it impossible for passersby to see your secret string.
There’s however an easy workaround that will let you convert those asterisks into the actual password and you don’t need any external utilities or bookmarklets for this.
Here’s how:
Reveal the Hidden Password
Right-click the password field and then choose “Inspect Element.” This will open the document inspector window and all you have to do is replace the word “password” with “text” as shown in the video above.
What we have done is changed the type of the field from <input> “password” to “text” i.e field=password to field=text and hence the password is revealed as the text input fields are never masked.
Also, the above demo was created in Google Chrome but you can use it across all browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. In the case of IE, press F12 to open the Developer Tools window and then press Ctrl+B to activate the element selection mode.
Say you are on the Gmail login page and the web browser, as always, has auto-filled the username and passwords fields for you.
This is convenient because you can sign-in to your account with a click but because you have not been typing these saved passwords for a while now, you don’t even remember the Gmail password anymore.
All web browsers, for security reasons, mask the password fields in login forms behind asterisk characters thus making it impossible for passersby to see your secret string.
There’s however an easy workaround that will let you convert those asterisks into the actual password and you don’t need any external utilities or bookmarklets for this.
Here’s how:
Reveal the Hidden Password
Right-click the password field and then choose “Inspect Element.” This will open the document inspector window and all you have to do is replace the word “password” with “text” as shown in the video above.
What we have done is changed the type of the field from <input> “password” to “text” i.e field=password to field=text and hence the password is revealed as the text input fields are never masked.
Also, the above demo was created in Google Chrome but you can use it across all browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. In the case of IE, press F12 to open the Developer Tools window and then press Ctrl+B to activate the element selection mode.
With more than 1,000 business schools around the world now accepting GRE scores, students taking a GRE gain advantage
David Payne, vice-president and chief operating officer for the Higher Education division at ETS, says, “Schools want great candidates for their MBA and specialised Master’s programmes and they recognise that GRE test takers are a highly qualified, highly diverse population.”
This information is good news for students around the world since taking the GRE revised General Test provides many advantages. In addition to a lower test fee compared to other admissions test options, GRE test takers benefit from the test-taker friendly features of the exam, such as the preview / review functionality and the quantitative reasoning section onscreen calculator.
GRE officials also announced the introduction of the new ScoreSelect option earlier this year, which allows test takers to decide which GRE scores, from their reportable history, to send to their designated schools. Students also appreciate the fact that GRE scores are welcome at both graduate and business schools, which means they need to take only one test as they explore their various academic and career options.
Among the 1,000 plus business schools now accepting GRE scores have most of the world’s top-ranked MBA programmes, including seven of the top 10 on the Financial Times 2012 Global MBA rankings. In addition, the business schools at Duke University, the University of Iowa and the University of Wisconsin-Madison join the 85% of US News & World Report Top 100 business schools in the United States that accept GRE scores. Around the world, some other recent additions to the rapidly growing worldwide network of schools accepting GRE scores include the triple-accredited EMLYON Business School, Fudan University, HEC Paris, IMD, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and University of Cambridge.
When asked about her school’s recent decision to accept GRE scores, Jenni Denniston, director of MBA recruiting and admissions at the Ivey School of Business at Western University in Canada, explains that “Accepting GRE scores opens up a new and diverse applicant pool for our full-time MBA programme to seek applications from.”
Pejay Belland, director, marketing, admissions and financial aid at INSEAD in France, says, “By accepting GRE scores for admissions we now have access to an even wider pool of candidates with highly unique profiles. This continued diversity results in developing skills in and outside of the classroom, which are crucial for tomorrow’s business leaders and entrepreneurs.”
Government Jobs
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) Recruitment of Management Trainees October 2012
01:14
HAL invites applications from young, energetic & result oriented Graduate Engineers and Finance / HR Professionals for the post of Management Trainees for its various Production, Overhaul & Service Divisions / Research & Design Centres / Offices, at Bangalore, Hyderabad, Nasik, Koraput (Orissa), Lucknow, Kanpur, Korwa (Uttar Pradesh), Barrackpore (West Bengal) & Kasaragod (Kerala).
Position : Management Trainee
Period of Online Registration : October 3, 2012 to October 19,2012
Pay scale : Rs. 16,400/- in the Grade-II Scale of Pay of Rs. 16,400-40,500/- and other allowances
Age limit : upto 28 Years
POSTS AND NUMBER OF VACANCIES
Management Trainee (Technical)
Vacancies: 273
Bachelor's Degree in Engineering / Technology (Full Time) (4 years after 10 +2) in the Branches of Aeronautical / Computer Science / Electrical / Electronics / Mechanical / Metallurgy / Production, from the recognized Institutes / Universities.
Management Trainee (Integrated Materials Management)
Vacancies: 25
Bachelor's Degree in Engineering / Technology (Full Time) (4 years after 10 +2) in the Branches of Electrical / Mechanical / Production, from Institutes / Universities, recognized by appropriate statutory authorities in the country. AMIE courses by Institute of Engineers (India) are also eligible.
Management Trainee (Finance)
Vacancies: 20
Bachelor's Degree in Engineering / Technology (Full Time) (4 years after 10 +2) in the Branches of Electrical / Mechanical / Production, from Institutes / Universities, recognized by appropriate statutory authorities in the country. AMIE courses by Institute of Engineers (India) are also eligible.
Management Trainee (Human Resources)
Vacancies: 25
Bachelor's Degree with 2 years Full Time Post Graduate Degree / Diploma / MBA / MSW / MA (3 + 2 years after 10 +2) with specialization in Human Resources / Personnel Management / Industrial Relations from Institutes / Universities recognized by appropriate statutory authorities in the country.
Application Fee:
Rs.400/- (Rupees Four Hundred only), which is non-refundable (exempted in the case of SC / ST / PWD candidates).
How to apply:
Eligible and interested candidates are required to apply Online only through HAL Website (Careers section): www.hal-india.com. No other means / mode of application will be accepted. The Website is functional from October 3, 2012 to October 19,2012 for registration
For more information regarding HAL Selection of Management Trainees in Technical / IMM / Finance / HR disciplines and to apply online please log-on to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) Website (hal-india.com) and visit the career section at http://hal-india.com/careersnew.asp on that page you can find the Link to Apply online.
Selection Process and Posting
Eligible candidates will have to appear for an Objective Type Competitive Online Test. The Online Test will be held at Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kochi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Noida, Pune, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Coimbatore & Vijayawada.
Selected candidates would be posted as Management Trainees in any of the Production, Overhaul or Services Divisions / Research & Design Centres / Offices, based on the requirements of the Company. They will undergo 52 weeks of training programme, comprising of various training modules including theoretical & on-the-job training at various places. The location where the selected candidates will be posted will be decided before joining HAL.
On successful completion of the training, the Trainees would be absorbed as Engineers / Officers with a Basic Pay of Rs. 16,400/- in the Grade-II Scale of Pay of Rs. 16,400-40,500/- and other allowances.
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited
Website: www.hal-india.com
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), a Navratna Central Public Sector Undertaking, is a premier Aeronautical industry of South East Asia, with 20 Production / Overhaul / Service Divisions and 10 co-located Research & Design Centres spread across the country.
Update: customers are complaining that GoDaddy hosted e-mail accounts are down as well, along with GoDaddy phone service and all sites using GoDaddy’s DNS service.
Update 2: Anonymous is claiming responsibility. A member of Anonymous known as AnonymousOwn3r is claiming responsibility, and makes it clear this is not an Anonymous collective action. I’ve been adding more information below as details emerge. A tipster tells us that the technical reason for the failure is being caused by the inaccessibility of GoDaddy’s DNS servers — specifically CNS1.SECURESERVER.NET, CNS2.SECURESERVER.NET, and CNS3.SECURESERVER.NET are failing to resolve.
AnonymousOwn3r’s bio reads “Security leader of #Anonymous (~Official member~).” The individual claims to be from Brazil, and hasn’t issued a statement as to why GoDaddy was targeted. Last year GoDaddy was pressured into opposing SOPA as customers transferred domains off the service, and the company has been the center of a few other controversies. However, AnonymousOwn3r has tweeted “I’m not anti go daddy, you guys will undestand because i did this attack.” The service Down For Everyone Or Just Me says the GoDaddy company website is down as well, but I’ve been able to access it just fine.
However, it does indeed appear that sites hosted by GoDaddy are down — including those who only have their domains registered through GoDaddy but use other hosts. For example, I’m seeing a database error on couponpuppet.com, one of the customers complaining about the outage on Twitter
Bharat Dynamics Limited, Hyderabad invites application for the following posts:
1. Stenographer: 09posts
Qualification: A Degree in Arts/Science/Commerce of any University as a regular course and Shorthand from State Board of Technical Education at 80 w.p.m. and Typewriting in English from State Board of Technical Education at 40 w.p.m. This post requires good communication skills
2. Junior Technician (Painter): 02posts
Qualification: ITI (Painter) with National Apprenticeship Certificate (NAC).
3. Junior Technician (Welder): 05posts
Qualification: ITI (Welder) with National Apprenticeship Certificate (NAC).
Application Fee: Rs. 200/- for Gen & OBC and the SC/ST/PWD candidates are exempted from fee
How to apply: Candidates should apply online only and It is mandatory to write his/her Name and the registration number allotted, on the reverse side of the Demand Draft and SC/ST/PWD on the reverse side of the certificates, which is to be forwarded along with registration slip and duly filled in Bio-Data (as per proforma at Annexure - I) to “AGM, C-P&A (Plg & ED), Bharat Dynamics Limited, Kanchanbagh, Hyderabad – 500 058” by post
Important dates:
Last date for registering online application is 31.07.2012
Last date for receiving hard copy of the application 03.08.2012
For more details Click here
1. Stenographer: 09posts
Qualification: A Degree in Arts/Science/Commerce of any University as a regular course and Shorthand from State Board of Technical Education at 80 w.p.m. and Typewriting in English from State Board of Technical Education at 40 w.p.m. This post requires good communication skills
2. Junior Technician (Painter): 02posts
Qualification: ITI (Painter) with National Apprenticeship Certificate (NAC).
3. Junior Technician (Welder): 05posts
Qualification: ITI (Welder) with National Apprenticeship Certificate (NAC).
Application Fee: Rs. 200/- for Gen & OBC and the SC/ST/PWD candidates are exempted from fee
How to apply: Candidates should apply online only and It is mandatory to write his/her Name and the registration number allotted, on the reverse side of the Demand Draft and SC/ST/PWD on the reverse side of the certificates, which is to be forwarded along with registration slip and duly filled in Bio-Data (as per proforma at Annexure - I) to “AGM, C-P&A (Plg & ED), Bharat Dynamics Limited, Kanchanbagh, Hyderabad – 500 058” by post
Important dates:
Last date for registering online application is 31.07.2012
Last date for receiving hard copy of the application 03.08.2012
For more details Click here
The Andhra pradesh Eamcet 2012 exam was conducted May 12, 2012.
The Students are eagerly waiting for the EAMCET 2012 results. The higher officials declared that the results will be on June 30th. The recently released advanced supply marks will be added and the result will be on the updated database. So it takes some time to update . Finally the results will be on 30th June 2012.
