An example of good user-centric design

When were on the way to pick up our friend from Montréal airport on Sunday, we noticed a subtle but very useful design feature on the overhead signs. There are two different airports in the vicinity, and a number of different lane changes are required. Typically when you see signs to an airport (certainly this is true around Heathrow or Gatwick in the UK), it's always the same icon of an aircraft.

What they have done here is angle the aircraft differently on each sign, according to whether you need to stay in the same lane, need to move left or move right. In doing so it serves as a subtle direction arrow. And when I think about it, I can remember at least one occasion being caught out by aircraft signs in the UK where the plane pointed in the opposite direction to that in which I needed to go.

The authority that put up these signs has apparently done some research with drivers into how they actually understand the signs, and have discovered that because the shape of a plane is similar to an arrow, people subconsciously read it as such, so have chosen to make sure the aircraft signs are giving clear signals under both interpretations (as an arrow as well as an aircraft). This is a great example of how you can improve your product by doing additional research into how it actually gets used in the field.

Posted via email from Bowyer's Bite-size Blogettes

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An example of bad usability

When I was in Las Vegas recently, staying in the Luxor, I experienced one of the worst designed pieces of technology that I've seen in a long time. Every day when I returned to the hotel, I had to get the lift back to my floor.

Each of the lifts had the same restriction in effect - you need to insert your room card, and wait for it to register (which sometimes doesn't work first time). Once it has been accepted, a green light will illuminate (if not, you get a red light or yellow light.) I have no idea why there are 3 possible states! Then you have about 4 seconds to press your floor button. If you press it in time, the floor button illuminates and locks in. If you miss your window (or someone else presses an illegal button) then you have to start the whole thing again.

OK, well it's a bit of a faff, but what's the big deal, you may ask. Well it's true that if you are riding the elevator on your own, it's awkward but doable - but as soon as you have more than a couple of people in the room the whole system resorts to chaos. Let's imagine there are 3 people, wanting to go to floors 3, 7 and 11. (It gets even more crazy when the lift has 6 or 7 people and not everyone can reach the buttons!). Anyway, in this example, Mr. 7 happens to be first, puts his card in, and presses the button. The lift starts moving towards floor 7. So now we have a lift that's in motion, but most of the people in the car haven't put their floor in yet. Mr. 3 puts his card in, and after a couple of tries gets it to accept. But we've already passed floor 3. So the button push is rejected. He has to wait until the lift is descending. Which means it's Mr 11's turn. He puts his card in just as we're arriving at floor 7. But before he can push the button, the lift (which now thinks its free) gets summoned to the ground floor. 3 and 11 are now right back to square one, on the ground floor. And so it goes on! It can take several minutes and unnecessary journeys to actually reach your floor, not to mention all sorts of unfamiliar social situations for which there is no established lift etiquette!

This is a great example of how designers can easily fail to consider their users when adding new features. The reading of the room card was clearly added for security - but they completely failed to consider the dynamics of how it would work in practice in a crowded lift.

Posted via email from Bowyer's Bite-size Blogettes

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Putting users first

SMS Haircut Reminders

My hairdresser, The Green Room, recently took an innovative step forwards; it now texts customers a reminder the day before their appointment. It struck me that this is a very smart move on their part, and a great example of how listening to your users - in this case people coming for haircuts - can not only improve their experience of your product but also help your business.

I chatted to Scott, the manager, about the process. He'd mentioned that they were having lots of problems with people not turning up for appointments. This was causing an impact to his business because those slots were lost business - which could not be refilled at such short notice. Also it meant that staff would have nothing to do during those slots.

Having chatted to some customers about this he had established that often people just completely forget - especially as appointments are often made weeks in advance. It's something about the busy lives we all lead these days - it's so easy to forget things like this if, like a large proportion of the population, you are not ultra-organised. I'm fairly organised and I managed to forget one once - even though I had it on my calendar.

So having worked out that really people just needed a reminder, he took the really simple step of buying a pay-as-you-go phone with a £15 per month unlimited text bundle, and having his staff text all of tomorrow's customers each morning. The cost of the phone & texts is neglible - and the time taken by staff is easy to cover.

As a result, he has noticed a 50% reduction in no-shows - which not only helps avoid any business impact and improves staff morale - but also is a real benefit to customers. I find it great peace of mind knowing I'll get that reminder - and it's just one small thing that acts as a differentiator for them from other competing hairdressers.

The lesson is clear: Listen to your customers, understand their problems, and think of ways to solve them that your business at the same time.

Earlier this year, I attended HCI2008, the Human-Computer Interaction conference, in Liverpool, and learnt all about User Interviewing and User Persona Creation. Personas are essentially fictional characters that you create to represent your users - and you use them as a means to drive the software design and development processes.

What's interesting is that it's not about asking users what they think of your solution or your ideas for features - it's about understanding users' goals, motivations and mental models, to equip you to make better design decisions.

It sounds such an obvious idea really, but it's amazing how many software companies do not routinely have these sorts of conversations with their customers. So I'm starting an initiative in my department at work to interview some of our customers and generate some personas. Once we're done, I'll blog here about how it goes.

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