1) I don't post to CHI-WEB because addresses are publicly posted to the web where harvesters can grab them. The archives should be tucked behind a login screen.

2) The dragon quote is funny, but it perpetuates the stereotype. How so? The dragon comment is now being read by people outside of CHI-WEB, can be picked up by Google, etc. Usability folk shouldn't make such jokes.

3) Guru? All it takes is calling yourself a guru. Get one journalist to refer to you as a guru in an article. Link to the article on your web site bio with "guru" in the link name. Future journalists will see the guru tag and it will propagate like there's no tomorrow.

Posted by: Jack on August 13, 2002 10:03 AM

 

Actually I called Chris a guru because he's got a 20-year history of seminal thinking [ http://www.erasmatazz.com/Library.html ], starting with his "The Art of Computer Game Design," which has been recognized as a classic in the field.

The dragon joke is a (slight) exaggeration of actual responses I heard in follow-up discussion on this topic. If the shoe fits...

Posted by: George Olsen on August 13, 2002 11:03 AM

 

Usability folk shouldn't make such jokes.

Usability is not funny. Never laugh. Never crack a smile.

Posted by: John S. Rhodes on August 13, 2002 12:47 PM

 

Ve have vays of preventing you from smiling...

Actually, I misspoke earlier due to caffine deficiency. My joke was based on responses to _previous_ CHI-Web discussions about computer games and usability.

Posted by: George Olsen on August 13, 2002 02:23 PM

 

I didn't see anything wrong with the joke, as I can really imagine people saying that! The nice thing about Usability and HCI is that the people who do it for a living are generally pretty passionate about it. To outsiders, we look like freaks for getting so worked up about how that damned Pepsi machine isn't usable because the readout of how many coins you have put in so far is covered so that only someone who is four feet tall would be able to read it.

Ahem. Anyway, you know what I mean.

Posted by: Lydia on August 13, 2002 02:45 PM

 

The usability and HCI community do not drink Pepsi. We drink tea. And our arms are scarred from the burns.

Posted by: Jack on August 13, 2002 02:54 PM

 

In the pub the other day I found myself looking at a cigar vending machine and thinking how it had really poor usability, as instead of simply putting buttons alongside each type of cigar it forces the user to read a small number then type it into a keypad.

I almost criticised it out loud, then came to my senses and got back to my drink.

Posted by: Matt Round on August 13, 2002 04:18 PM

 

Thank goodness. At least Matt's like me too. I thought I was the only freak who did that. I occasionally carry my digicam with me to take photos of poor product design. Does that confirm me as a freak?

Posted by: MadMan on August 13, 2002 05:22 PM

 

I have actually used critiques of poorly designed electronic machines as a way to break the ice with people in public. IMHO, I think that qualifies me for freakdom more than photography.

The funny thing is, it usually works!

Posted by: Lydia on August 13, 2002 05:34 PM

 

Maybe, it's freakdom, but as Lydia notes, it's also a way of building up a good library of images for user-centered communication (which unfortunately, UCD professionals all too often seem strangely adverse to).

Half the struggle is getting people to understand that the sort of things they wouldn't (OK, shouldn't, but often do...) tolerate in their physical-world products, customer service, etc. are same sorts of kinds of problems they'd want avoid in their digital products and services.

Analogies help, but having real-world examples obviously are good for making it "real" to people.

'Course I'd never notice the Pepsi machine problems since Peet's Sulawesi-Kalosi is my drug of choice.

Posted by: George Olsen on August 13, 2002 06:04 PM

 

George gets me thinking. We seem to tolerate a mediocrity in the products we use regularly. Worse, our frustration doesn't reach product designers because we rarely complain to the company that makes it.

Take the, er, cigar machine Matt talked about (though I've never seen one.) Matt was a little pissed off about the lack of buttons that would've been easier. So he swears a bit, but uses the machine anyway, and walks off.

Unfortunately, this feedback never goes to the people who made the blasted machine. Matt is probably not the only one who found it hard to use, but it's too minor an issue for Matt or anyone else to send a mail to the company complaining about it.

How do the product designers find these problems? And if they don't, how do they improve? Put 10 people in a usability test and they'll happily press two numbers in, not reporting any problems. Make them do it every day every couple of hours, and they might say it frustrates them. But does your average usability test measure that? How many such tests measure the effects of continuous long-term use of a product?

As I was typing this, I thought of something that some of you may find interesting.

There's this upscale Thai restaurant near my place. I'm friends with many people there including the chef. Today, the manager asked for some suggestions on how to make Thai food more popular so that more people would visit their restaurant. I rattled off a whole bunch of ideas (not important here.)

And then something else struck me. I looked at the menu itself. And I saw that the dishes were listed with their Thai names (with explanations in smaller type below). While I don't have a problem with it (I cook a lot of thai food and I know what they mean), I realised that it created a barrier for marketing. Word of mouth is very important for a restaurant's business. And I realised that if people can't pronounce or remember the thai names, they're not likely to tell their friends to try it either.

So I told the manager that people would have problems recalling the name which would cause two problems:

a) They wouldn't be able to recommend dishes to their friends, which would hurt business

b) They wouldn't remember the name of the wonderful dish they had the previous time, which would make it hard for them to order it again. They'd have to say something like "chicken in a red sauce with red pepper, with mint on the side."

Not surprisingly, the manager confirmed it. He said that he often had to figure out dishes by asking patrons questions about shape, taste, colour, smell, etc.

This may seem like a marketing issue, but I maintain that it was important. The problem? Not many people would point it out. The restaurant guys didn't even think that it was an issue, since they provided English explanations on their menu. Only when I told them about it did they go "aah".

And there ends my rambling for the day.

Posted by: MadMan on August 13, 2002 07:21 PM

 

MadMan has succinctly summarized the entire field of usability. When people ask me what I do for a living, I will now say, "I get paid to make people say 'aah.'"

I'll be careful to only say that to women, and never in the presence of my wife.

Posted by: Jack on August 13, 2002 07:30 PM

 

Madman shows how user experience meets customer experience meets brand experience.

Ideally, Marketing is our ally. After all, Procter & Gambles famous definition of marketing was solving people's people for a profit.

Marketing obviously has wider concerns (of the 4Ps, we only deal with the product itself, not it's pricing, placement or promotion) so we're not always going to be on the same wavelength.

And the more practical problem is that marketing/branding folks aren't used to having control over the direct experience with the product, so their thinking is geared around indirect messaging. (There's another problem in that Marketing is often a catch-all department that collects people without any training or expertise in it, but that's another post...)

Incidently, this points out one of the really interesting twists with digital products (sites, software, etc.). They're products that behave much more like services -- and in services the experience of using the service can be just as important as the value of the service itself. Given two services of otherwise equal value and price, the one with better customer service usually wins.

And good service can sometimes conquer value. For example, because I've got premium flier status with American I'll usually try to fly them because I know I'll get priority check-in, priority boarding and often better seats. It's worth having to pay a little more if necessary or sometimes having a less convenient route. Is that the intent of America's premium flier program -- you betcha.

Posted by: George Olsen on August 13, 2002 07:53 PM

 

I must say that one of the funniest things I ever saw was a group of HCI people at a conference discussing the pros and cons of a lift (or elevator for colonials) interface. They spent almost 20 minutes going up and down in the lift discussing the pros and cons of the design. It started to get a bit silly when someone suggested they buy some tools and start rewiring the lift to work differently.

* Disclaimer: While I was in the lift at the beginning, I left after 10 minutes. Althought that was mainly because I wanted to analyse the flushing mechanims in the bogs (or John for colonials)

Posted by: Mac on August 14, 2002 04:52 AM