On David Pogue’s newsletter today he talks about how poorly designed user experiences affect people. The title of the post is “It’s the Software, Not You“. He mentions a couple common user experiences with poorly designed, or mediocre interactions.
- An airline kiosk that asks the user to enter detailed flight information even after the user has swiped his credit card (Note: Probably a poorly thought out security measure)
- A taxi point of sale interaction that only allows the user to select set dollar amounts for tips no matter what the distance or quality of the ride (Note: $0 was not an option)
- The irritating Windows software installer wizard (Note: He suggests a fantastic solution)
This reminds me of the MOMA kiosk I mentioned in a blog post a while back that required users to make selections at the kiosk then go to the counter to finalize the purchase – isn’t the whole point of automating a process to avoid making people go to the counter?
All of the user experiences fail at two things:
- They don’t use information they already know, and instead rely on the user to make up for their ignorance/laziness
- They don’t understand that people don’t want to use software, they want to accomplish tasks
Every time I am asked to design an interaction, I pray I don’t forget that the goal is to, at the very least, make it easy for people to accomplish their goals and, at the very best, make it enjoyable. I have failed numerous times at designing experiences, but I hope I’m learning from my mistakes.
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