CDROM Telephone Directory of MTNL Delhi Ver. 2K51
Updated upto 31st March, 2005
Developed by MTNL IT Cell, New Delhi
No updated directory is provided for Delhiites since many years, so I bought this CD.
Welcome Screen has three Old Fashioned Buttons i.e. ’’Delhi Directory’’, ’’Delhi Information’’ & ’’Quit’’. Other items are stacked to fill up the page. Text is not aligned at some places.
The menus are not center aligned, if you are viewing this CD on 17’’ monitor. Must use 800x600 Resolution for better viewing. Still you won’t be able to access bottom items easily.
Coming back to different options:
DELHI DIRECTORY
Search By NAME has two options -- by SURNAME or by BUSINESS
by SURNAME
We can enter ’’Surname’’, ’’Initials’’ & can select the ’’Area’’ to Search
So let’s start:
I entered my Father’s LASTNAME and INITIALS and Hit the ’’Search Button’’. BINGO! As expected, there was no record with our address in the database.
2nd Try: I entered LASTNAME, INITIALS & AREA and Hit the Search Button. No Success!!
3rd Try: I entered my Father’s ’’FIRSTNAME’’ into ’’LASTNAME’’ field and hit the Search Button. SUCCESS!!
There were 53 records with this name, it could be 530 in some other case, so what can I do??
Tried sorting it by AREA or by PHONE NO. (Particular area’s phone nos are similar). The catch is, I can’t sort it.
The only sorted column is the INITIAL’s column (in some cases it’s also wrong). So keep going through every single address, line by line until you gain success.
What if you know someone’s FIRSTNAME?? There is no column to enter ’’Firstname’’. Simple.
There is no option such as ’’Search within records found’’ to narrow down one’s Search.
The AREA column will not work if you will use ’’Down Arrow’’ for selection.
by BUSINESS
Search By BUSINESS has two boxes -- COMPANY and AREA
I was able to find the addresses, I knew, without any problem. It won’t be easy to find unknown addresses, I guess.
OTHER LINKS
Search by TELEPHONE or OLD TELEPHONE is functioning well. You will get Name & Address of the person whose Telephone No. is Searched.
STD, ISD, MY ADDRESS BOOK, TARIFF CALCULATION are also provided.
What if you want to search say a ’’MINISTRY FINANCE’’ Phone No.?? The Designers forgot to provide any Links or Menus for this purpose.
To find a ’’MINISTRY FINANCE’’ Phone No., Goto Search by BUSINESS and enter ’’MINISTRY FINANCE’’ in ’’COMPANY’’ Field. Hit the Search Button. You will get 1485 Phone Nos. which can not be Sorted by any means. So keep going through record by record until you gain success.
DELHI INFORMATION
Welcome Screen has Very Poor Designing and Alignment of Lists/Menus and Sub-Lists/Sub-Menus, Worst Back Button poorly aligned.
A background image of ’’India Gate’’ is fixed on page which is just there to show that it’s Delhi’s Directory and not at all properly used to enhance the page’s appearance.
Many Useful Links are provided such as ’’Railways Enquiry, Hospitals’’ etc. 10 Links are for MTNL Services and Information.
Most of the information provided in these links is outdated. If you follow the Link for Delhi’s Map, you will notice that the Map provided is at least 15 years old.
Areas like Dwarka in West Delhi are completely missing. Phone Nos. provided are old ones, even 7-digit nos. are provided, which are non-existent now.
If you click say ’’Shopping’’ link, you will notice that no one told the designer about alignment, colour combination, line spacing, use of consistent fonts, where to put ’’Back’’ link and so many other things. I hope this is not a class project.
One more example, click the ’’Fire Station’’ link, a map is provided for location of Fire Station, which you can’t read, it’s so compressed. Click the ’’Top’’ link and you will be thrown out of CD and taken to ’’ https://dfs.delhigovt.nic.in/telephone.html#top ’’, which suggests that it has been copied from delhigovt’s site.
Different pages are designed by different Designers, but there is no consistency in designing, fonts and colour combination. There is only one consistency, i.e. ’’Poor Designing’’.
My Score for Designing: 5/10, Programming: 8/10