Anshuman Singh — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 05:57:52 GMT

Talking of luring a user esp. in context of email: Not too long ago the default choice for free email was primarily Yahoo and Hotmail/MSN + a local variant (e.g. Indiatimes in India). When Google entered the game, they had an uphill task to differentiate themselves so that people move away from their one/two primary email Hotmail/Yahoo addresses and opt into Google. Afterall, it’s not easy to change people’s habit (like your Shampoo/Toothpaste).

Google changed the game by
1. using the different (not unique and neither original) interaction model,
2. allowing labels instead of folders etc.
3. Email Search with a Pedigree
4. Fantastic Anti-Spam (I rarely receive Spam in my Inbox and rarely a genuine email in my Spam Folder)
5. to top it all a huge space.

It changed the rules of the game since – forcing Yahoo to change interaction, UI, space etc. Users were enticed by the 1GB limit and the fact that it was exclusive ‘invitation only’ email (in the start). Once people started using, they were hooked – these are classic selling techniques which you will notice aplenty in the real world.

Anshuman Singh — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:11:08 GMT

Interesting Article. A quick and dirty way of doing this is in Dreamweaver.

If you build your SiteMap in Dreamweaver, it will create a set of interlinked pages and each page will have link to the ‘children’. A user can then click-through (and back-track when needed). This will help you test your IA.

At MindTree, we use this often. Once the IA is frozen, we then use the same pages to develop clickable wireframes.

Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Anshuman Singh