Design evolution of Random Contact app

Background
Just this week I published an app on Google Play Store called Random Contact. It all started when I was learning the Android Contacts API. I wanted to make an app myself that made use of the Contacts API so that I could learn and see it working in a real environment. Especially as I had a Google Nexus S, it was even more an incentive to develop and experiment my own apps and see them running on my phone.

Random Contact

So that was the reason for developing this app. There seemed no point in making another contacts app as the stock(default) one was very good and many third party apps available. So I thought of making an app that shows a random contact details. It has a surprise element to it.

Warning: This app is not meant to be a replacement for your Contacts / Dialer app. This is a fun app with no real use. The main reason this app is considered as part of "Useless Apps" internally.

The development started with an old version of Android API (2.2 to be precise), so I wasn't keeping in mind the latest design guidelines and the result was an ugly looking app with very little user experience

Redesign and Rewrite
After the Holo design came out solid Android Design guidelines became the De-facto standard, I went about researching on how to create a better User experience (UX) keeping in mind that this app has no special value to a user.

After going through brainstorming and multiple drawings on paper, came up with the new design. And in keeping with the time, rewrote most of the code against Android 4.3 APIs and is now available on the Play Store. Along the way some optimizations and new features were added.

Few people might have seen the original app, so below you can find a screen shot of initial screen, design on paper and the present day app.

Left : First version, Middle : redesign on paper, Right : Completely redesigned UI

Apps Library
I will touch on this in a future post, but one of the side effects of development this app was an Android library app that I created which makes use of mostly my research and studies. This will be an ever growing library which is open sourced and publicly available on GitHub. Any new Android projects can make use of this library to achieve similar functionality.

Try out the app
So if you are still interested in checking out this app, follow the link below to get it from the Play Store.

Age of Logo Redesign

The past few months have seen some slight to major redesigns of some major websites. The fact that these have come months apart maybe a coincidence.

Google Logo

The new Google design including logo was mentioned in this post earlier. Above you can see the old logo on the left with the updated flat style logo to its right. The change was from a logo with 3D look with shadow to plain and flat look.

Yahoo Logo

It all started when Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer announced a "30 days of Change", with a new logo for 30 days. At the end of which Yahoo! released their new logo - the same Yahoo and an exclamation mark as shown above. It can easily be noted that the logo has slimmed down and they have used a sans serif font instead. The old logo looked funky, but the new one sporting a darker purple has an elegant look. You can also see it has a slight 3D look and feel to it.

Bing Logo

Bing - Microsoft's answer to Google was the last to do the overhaul. But the change to Bing is more vivid. They have a new logo, which looks like Google Drive's. Then the font has been simplified to follow the new Microsoft logo. And at last it is all golden color now from a blue shade.

In a space of few months, some major websites have tinkered with their logos. What do you think of these changes?

Aim of Google redesign

This post is my speculation on the aim for the latest Google navigation redesign.

The ugly black navigation bar at the top of the Google Home Page was pretty difficult to use with touch devices like smart phones or tablets. So this could be a reason for coming up with the App Launcher.

With the App Launcher, it becomes easy with a touch based interface to go to that application faster.

Its true that most of the buttons in Google applications are bigger and space around them so as to be easy to touch without having to worry about clicking on something else.

Buttons in Blogger

One more thing that I would like to add is the tabs in Google Image search, although they are just text the extra spacing between lets the user choose what they really want.

If you have any other views, feel free to add in the comments.

New Google Logo and Navigation bar

Google is starting to rollout a new logo and navigation bar.

New Flat Google Logo

Ironically the new logo looks flat and simple - following the iOS7 paradigm.The previous logo is shown below. For now some people might see the old logo, but I guess they are rolling the changes slowly, probably looking for early feedback from the users.

The old logo

And the much disliked black band across the top with links to all Google services is gone. It is now replaced with an App drawer button.Next to the Sign in button below, you can see what looks similar to the Android app drawer button from which you can launch google apps.

New home page with app drawer.

Check if you are able to see the new design..

Cryptx 6

Finally, the most awaited Adobe AIR based development project is about to get released. The latest version of CryptX will be 6 superceding the HTA and C++ based 5.1 Beta. Yes, the last version never broke from the Beta label. It was made as a Proof Of Concept that such an encryption decryption utility could be made, after encryption algorithm security problems from CryptX 4.

CryptX 6 like its predecessor will be using 128 bit AES encryption. Check out some of the features of CryptX 6.

• 128-bit AES Encryption.
• Password used for encryption is not stored in the encrypted file.
• Completely written using Action Script 3 and uses as3crypto library.
• Intuitive UI.
• Desktop integration with Encrypted file.
• Using Green Threads for multitasking support in AS3.
• Improved performance from previous versions.
• Logging Platform support.

Please note that the CryptX 6 does not support file formats from previous versions.

More info to follow

Introducing Triton Player

I am quite happy to introduce Triton Player, the current project that i am working on. This will be an extension of the eMplayer that was done with HTA technology using Javascript and some C code some time back. This time, the development is taking flight using Adobe AIR Technology. The most important feature that I am trying to add is Twitter integration using OAuth.

The logo for the application has been designed using Illustrator and Fireworks. The logo features a Trident with supposedly sound waves emanating from it. A sample UI Screenshot of the application's current state on my desktop is given below.

I am unable to say whether like eMplayer that this project will also come ot of Beta or if ever it would be complete. So this project would mostly be a non-release-to-public project. Lot of features are planned but i still have no idea about the completion of this one.

MHK's Logo (again)

      Here it is again, a slightly modified version for the Logo. Well finaly after about 10 years or renovation and redesign, we have made the official logo for Mhk as the one shown below. Note that this is the official Basic logo from now onwards.

    This time, retouched the swipe for the K and redrew the MH part in Illustrator CS3.  All Vectors and compared to the 2008 version, aligned all the stuffs, width etc. Have to say it is an awesome software. Very easy to work with and immensely powerful. Just fun to draw with . So did a rotated 256x256 version with a a slight gradient for the Orkut profile's Display Pic.

The Rubicon Panel - Control Panel

    The Rubicon  Panel is a custom developed control panel for use with the redesigned Mangalam College of Engg site. A number of features have been improvised and implemented into the panel. Shown below are the screen shots of the important features of the panel.

    This is the Rich text editor for managing the news, events and even the static contents for the site. All the data arse stored in the database. Even a person without  any knowledge with web designing can easily add or edit contents with much ease.

    This is the Add new staff member to the database form, part of the staff management module. 

    The Gallery management module has been a powerful module that has been researched and implemented for this project. New album can be created very easily and thumbnails are generated automatically for each uploaded image.

    The uploaded document manager makes it easy to upload documents to the site. It also provides the feature to get the link for each file , so that it may be added to a news or event item easily.

    That covers the important features provided by the panel ....

   

Microsoft .net gets new logo

    Microsoft has made a change to the logo for .net . The new one features a blue ribbon like design which looks way better than the old one which was just a .net written in a way that the lettrings were connected and some colors lying here and there. This logo shown above seems to denote an N.

    The new logo looks simply stunning, guess it was released with the Microsoft .net Framework 3.5...

Gmail is themed!!!

    Hey i just logged into my Gmail account and learnt that they have introduced a variety of themes for the Gmail interface. Guess its another development from the Google Labs... Theres currently about 24 different themes including the Clasic theme.

    Themes can be accessed from the Themes tab in the Settings page. This seems a welcome move by the Gmail theme as already Firefox and plugins were able to theme Gmail for ages now. Its like about time the Gmail team did something about it.

    I didint try all the themes, but just looked through a handful before choosing the "Shiny" theme for a few days .........

Mangalam College of Engineering - Website Promotional Wallpaper 03

Some more tweaks and web address of aeonline

http://lh6.ggpht.com/midhunhk/SK5vQ4WA8iI/AAAAAAAAAL4/ZuZuYwHXmi4/mlmce_site_promo_wall002-02.jpg

Mangalam College of Engineering - Website Promotional Wallpaper 02

Here is a modified version of the original wallpaper ...

Mangalam College of Engineering - Web site promotional Wallpaper

   Mangalam College of Engineering have planned a new web site, So here is the promotional wallpaper that has been created by ae..

Done in less than 10 minutes ........

Cryptx 5 - Web 2.0 Logo

   Hey there , for further promotional purposes, we have done a Web 2.0 style logo for the Cryptx 5 release. Its been done using Macromedia Fireworks 8. Hope the promotional stuffs work .....

New favicon for Google!

      Hey Google have changed their favicon. For those new to this term,a favicon is a small 16X16 image that is displayed next to the address of the site and propably seen in Opera and Firefox. Blogger has a kindof B in its favicon. It is just a graphic used to associate something with a site.

       Google had been sporting this image as their favicon for a long time. It consisted of a capital G surrounded by four lines that make a box with different colors (those of the Google logo).


     It had a sort of corporate mean look to it. And it also looks boring and a bit complex with the different colors and all. So i guess the google developers have finally decided that its time to change.. Have a look at this :



    This is the new favicon. Its a blue small case g from the Google logo. It also sports a small shadow as well adn looks deliciously fantastic. I guess it signifies some freedom from the old bounded coroprate logo.  This one is more close to the styles of Google.

     To see it for urself make sure you clean your cache and type in any of google.com, image.google.com or any other google based service...

Mhk '08 Logo released

    The 2008 design and development campaign at ae Labs kickstarted with the creation  and release of the new logo for mhk, for 2008. Its kind of a tradition to have a separate logo for each year starting from 2002!

    This year's logo is a slight modification of last years, but what the heck as 
long as it looks good, who cares! This one sports a merged M and H followed by a K resembling a calligraphic stroke. To make it interesting, the K is given a slight Orangish tint. Theres a light '08 below the stroke. In the emphasised version the whole logo elements are given an inner bevel and a drop shadow. At times you may find view finder lines at the edges of the logo. 

    There may some twaking to the logo, but the basic design is set to remain the same. There are some thought streams that imply to scrap the 
change in logo every year and go with this one permanently (Thats how good this logo looks compared to previous versions!)

   So presenting the basic logo for mhk'08 ...