Method Not Implemented

Texavi April 6, 2011

0 Comments

How many times did you come across something on the web sites that absolutely baffles you, puzzles and leaves you with no clues and options, but to close the page and move on? Well, I have many such instances, where technology creeps in where and when its not supposed to and spins in a whole new meaning to the context. There is a big trouble when technology or the lack of it is exposed to those who are not supposed to view or deal with it. My suggestion is to keep the technology to where it belongs and show the value from it to users and not the other way round.

Keep technology to where it belongs

Take for instance, the following page I came across while browsing through the life and works of ‘Andy Warhol’, one of my all time favorites. Watch the area on the right with the red circle – ‘Method Not Implemented’ and ‘Invalid method in request’. The funny part is this was written in such a way that its almost shouting to the reader “Look at me, I am the most important thing on this page”. For a starter, who looks at it and makes no sense of it, mistakes that Andy indeed would have said that. No wonder you would come across an article some day which attributes a quote “Method not implemented” to Andy Warhol!! 🙂

A place for everything

And everything in its place. I am not undermining the importance of technology in the products that we use everyday. On the contrary, being a technologist myself, I support the application of technology in all aspects of our life and work to make them easy, comfortable and convenient.However, we all need to understand that application of technology for users’ benefit is different from exposing technology to non-specialists.

Mantra for a successful product

My simple mantra for a successful product development is the following:

“Business and Users first, Technology next and everything else last, in that order!”. Believe me, it works and following this mantra worked for me every time. Hope it works for you too!

AI Is Not a Tool, It Is Cognitive Infrastructure!

There is a quiet ‘category error’ sitting at the centre of much of the AI conversation right now, and it is shaping decisions that will outlive the people making them.

We keep calling AI a tool.

Tools are picked up and put down. Tools sit in a drawer until needed. A hammer does not change what a wall is, what a house means, or how a neighbourhood feels. The framing is comfortable because it puts us in charge: we choose, we wield, we set down. I would argue, though, that it is the wrong frame. It is wrong in the way that calling electricity “a better candle” was wrong in 1890. The artefact is recognisable; the substrate it creates is not.

What we are actually building, and stitching into the daily fabric of work and life, is starting to behave more like cognitive infrastructure. Something that increasingly mediates how we perceive, decide, coordinate, and remember. You do not “use” infrastructure the way you use a tool. You live inside it. The question of who designs it, who maintains it, and who gets to question it becomes a different kind of question entirely. This distinction is not academic. It changes the strategy.

This article on artificial intelligence as a cognitive infrastructure framework is written by Rohit Mahadevu, AI and Digital Transformation Consultant at Texavi Innovative Solutions. Read on…

Texavi April 12, 2026

0 Comments

The joy of surprise

‘Wow!’, a word that sums up the delightful experience and surprise expressed by users of very few products out there in the market. Apple has been consistently delivering what I call as ‘Wow experiences’ to its users from Macintosh, through to the recently-released iPad2. To be able to surprise your users you should not only focus on your products alone, but try and provide an OOBE (Out of the Box Experience) starting from pre-launch, to the point-of-purchase to the post-purchase opportunities. In the blog post, I give a few real life examples of how successful organization have been wooing and wowing their users, along with a few tips and tricks from my own experience. Read on to say wow…

Texavi March 12, 2011

0 Comments

First things first – make it work well

New year 2011 was not all fun for some users of Apple iPhone4, who woke up late, thanks to the defect in the Alarm app. Ditto are the problems for a few Hotmail users whose mail boxes were wiped out and back in 2010, Google Wave became a dud. Why do you think these problems cropped up in the first place? In this blog post, I analyze these and more to identify the root cause. Get a glimpse of FURPS+ model, and a brief touch on ‘Form follows Function’. Read on, to get first things first and how you can make it work for you and many others!

Texavi January 28, 2011

0 Comments