Preface: You get some kind of some random thoughts this week, but I know they're significant because I originally wrote them in a moleskine notebook, and supposedly that's what Hemingway used to write in before he snapped and shot himself.
The topic this week is how the effects of different user contexts can be observed and designed for. Let me start with an example: a waiter serving customers at a restaurant. For the waiter, many customers will come and go throughout the night, and he will repeat the elemental actions of his service cycle over and over again with different subjects.
On the other side of this interaction are the customers. From their viewpoint, the restaurant is only one stop on their itinerary for the evening, and they only interact with one waiter.
Although in this case, no technological system is really designed to support this interaction, the waiter certainly takes advantage of his context to re-use effective strategies on subsequent customers. This gets more relevant to interaction designers when the system complexity increases - for an example, we can look at everyone's favorite coffeehouse.
At Starbucks, one context is a barista who deals with people all day. The overlapping context encompasses the legion of individuals who need their grande double shot no whip skim chocolate latte right now. It's not too hard to imagine how the interaction between these two can quickly degrade. But here, we have the advantage of designing a system to place in between the two contexts to help the interaction run more smoothly.
One of the things I like best about Starbucks' approach to the customer interaction is that their computer system requires (maybe? they ask me most of the time but not always) a name to associate with the order, which results in a self-disclosure from the customer. This helps the customer build a relationship with the barista, and the barista to see the customer as a unique person; both of these elements increase the likelihood of a pleasant interaction. And this is one of the things that makes me happy to be studying interaction design; the thought that subtle design decisions can positively influence people's experience without them even being aware of it... =)
All that being said -- what do you think? Have you seen some examples that bridge a contextual gap between participants? What about systems that fail at this?
New home
4 years ago
2 comments:
Wow, your local Starbucks must be better than mine. I frequent the one in the Merchandise Mart - as do about 8 million other people every morning.
The system of taking names with orders doesn't exist at my location. Instead, you get in a long line and the barista shouts over other customers "sir...sir....SIRRR!!...can I get a beverage started for you!?" To which I always reply "coffee." Then, after reaching the register the checkout person asks what I'm having, to which I reply "coffee." Lastly I make my way to the left to get my cup from a barista that asks me what I'm having, to which I reply "ugh....coffee."
It's probably faster this way - they would know after all - but I'd like to order once if possible.
I do appreciate that their credit card machine doesn't take long to verify transactions and that I never have to sign a receipt.
Sorry, but I don't think Hemmingway "snapped" as you say. My understanding is he really pushed the limits and, well, got tired. Kind of like Hunter S. Thompson. When you've seen and done it all, perhaps it's OK to go out on your own terms?
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