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Gonna drop down from the usual high-concept ramblings here to discuss a usability gaffe that's got to be my all-time favorite. I came across this soon after moving to Chicago, when trying to find a channel guide for my Comcast cable. Let me just say, when I saw the prompt "Select your neighborhood...", I was looking for something like "Lincoln Park." You know.
After I finished laughing, I actually checked my documentation to see if these were some labels I was supposed to know or something... nope. I decided to go with the second option because I didn't see any rebuilding going on outside my window. The really frightening thing is that one screen before this, I was asked to enter my address to log in to the Comcast system or whatever. This, to me, is a classic example of what About Face (omg v3!) preaches: Don't make the user enter data that the system can figure out.
I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has good stories about entering unneeded information. If we get a few comments going it'll help me take my mind off of mental models for a week!
Ok this post is a little esoteric but hey, that's how I get down sometimes. Have you seen the commercials for the new T-Mobile Sidekick? The one that's designed by D-Wade?Yeah, I've got multiple issues with this.1. What is D-Wade's actual contribution to this phone? The commercials, I'm pretty sure, say he "designed" it. Now I'm sure #3 is quite intelligent, but somehow I have trouble seeing him pondering a user flow diagram in Visio on the plane between series. But ok, the weblink above is more forgiving - it says he "played an integral part in the design" of the Sidekick. So did he pick the colors? Are gold and cream D-Wade's signature colors or something? Did he choose the control layout? Well, his model is laid out exactly the same as the normal ones. Or, and this is the scenario I find most likely, did he get paid some money to be in a commercial holding a Sidekick which some actual designers colored to appeal to the NBA-hip-hop-success lifestyle demographic and to look good next to D-Wade in a white suit?2. Isn't the claim that D-Wade designed this phone interesting commentary on the general public's perception of designers? Does this perception of design as needing no specialized knowledge speak to the troubling tendency of users to blame themselves for errors (cause you know, it's not like designers should be going out of their way to make it easy or anything)? Or am I reading too much into this?3. If normal people freak out for a phone "designed" by D-Wade, would actual designers freak out for a [whatever] designed by some superstar designer? I guess this already happens somewhat in the consumer products sphere but I'm curious if someone in the software universe would have that kind of pull (Other than Apple of course).
Travis' comment on my last post got me to thinking, maybe I came off too complimentary about Starbucks! Although I really like the name-asking, and as he pointed out, the fast and easy credit processing, there's definitely some aspects of Starbucks' interaction design I find troubling.
Specifically, I'm freaked out by the way Starbucks casually lets their implementation model take priority over the customer's mental model (you can get a bit more detail on implementation vs mental models here if you like) of drink ordering.
I'm uncool enough to remember the first time I went to Starbucks, so let me describe the evolution of my coffee-ordering mental model. My first time, I saw they had a chai latte, which I knew I liked. I ordered it at the register, and then moved back a few steps, waiting there until I heard "Grande chai" shouted from somewhere to my right. Ok, drinks don't come out at the register. My zero-experience mental model of Starbucks was copied from fast-food restaurants, so it wasn't much of a leap to ordering at the register and picking up my drink at the bar (Even though I've seen some Starbucks where the big coffee making thing kind of blocks the view of the counter part).
No sweat, I've got it down. Order at register, pick up drink at the bar. This worked out until the first time I ordered a frappucino, stood at the bar, and oh! here comes my drink at the register. I remember this caused some trouble because it was very busy, and I didn't quite hear the cashier saying "frappucino" (low expectancy for input from that channel!). I left Starbucks that day secure in my new expertise: "Cold drinks come out at the register, hot drinks come out at the bar."
This one worked out until I saw someone order a regular coffee and it came out at the register - thus revealing the naivete of my mental model. You could write all these errors off as novice user mistakes, but at this point I'd been going to Starbucks for a pretty reasonable amount of time. With no signage or cues built into the system, it's really difficult to make the leap from a working mental model to the actual implementation model (read: from novice to expert).
I have two hypotheses about the effects of this situation:
1. Most people do not have a deep understanding of Starbucks' implementation model. I could be wrong about this - maybe I'm just coffee-retarded or something. But I'd be willing to bet that most people that succeed in ordering at Starbucks just have a robust working model of the things they most frequently order (this is currently the case for me).
2. This is a barrier to experimentation and new customers, because people are afraid to fail in front of others. Especially in a place like Starbucks, which, as Aaron pointed out to me a bit ago, sells a whole attitude of urban "coolness." I know intelligent, rational people that love specialty coffees but are afraid to go to Starbucks because they feel like the ordering system is too complicated and they don't want to mess it up. Now you might argue Starbucks is successful, so those customers (the ones not cool enough to figure out the implementation model) just aren't the target market. I guess we should be glad Starbucks doesn't "target" everyone then, or they might have enough money to buy the whole solar system.
