Usability Failures
Posted on July 15, 2006 Comments (6)
‘Smart’ phones, stupid punters?
I believe one in seven is the model of phone. I guess if you operational define “nothing wrong” as a failure to work as the manufacturer intended that would be true. But is that what really matters? What is the number of defects that should be counted? What number of six sigma defects would be counted?
The design of the phone is broken if 63% of the returns work as intended and customers still think they are broken. You might argue that the instructions are bad, but really shouldn’t people just be able to use the phone if it is designed well?
Yes that is a reasonable systems view that shows it is not just the design that can impact usability. But until the system provides good “training” to users you really should design something that is simple to use. And, even with good “training” for customers I really don’t see why you can’t design a phone to be easy to use.
Phones should be designed so that it is easy to do what at you want and hard to do what you don’t want. A form of poka-yoke.
Hey Tesco mobile apply lean thinking to giving your customers phones they can use (see other Tesco related posts).
Google offers wonderful webcasts of speeches available online by experts on engineering and other topics. In The Paradox of Choice – Why More Is Less, Barry Schwartz discusses related ideas and mentions the only kind of mobile phone you can’t get not is a simple one.
6 Responses to “Usability Failures”
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October 12th, 2006 @ 11:19 pm
You know that is a pretty good explanation of the reasoning behind mistake proofing: eliminate as many possibilities for errors as possible…
October 31st, 2006 @ 7:48 pm
[...] Awhile back we posted about the lack of simple phones now Motorola is looking at this market. See: Motorola’s Dumb Phone: Looking for more customers, the company did extensive market research in poor countries. The result: the company’s slimmest phone yet, boasting cutting-edge technology that–rather than adding complexity–extends battery life and makes the phone simpler to use. [...]
November 3rd, 2006 @ 3:41 pm
“But that’s not where the crappiness ends. No, not by a long shot. Turns out, the ####### Comcast HD DVR *does not have a hard drive.* That’s right, when the power goes out, the ####### box loses ALL OF THE SAVED PROGRAMS!!!!…”
November 29th, 2006 @ 12:32 pm
[...] To encourage useful feedback, specifically give the customer permission to mention something that could be improved. What one thing could we do better? [...]
September 27th, 2008 @ 6:23 pm
Companies seem to think technology is an excuse to provide bad service. Or maybe they don’t need any excuse at all to do so, based on how often they provide bad service…
May 16th, 2009 @ 12:59 pm
Why does simplicity matter? Is there a meaningful definition of simplicity? Why do design processes and good intentions undermine simplicity? What processes and techniques can software developers use to achieve simplicity?…