blog364

(Note: this post was originally posted last year. Due to the hacker incident it’s being reposted again!)

I recently finished reading The Inmates Are Running the Asylum by Alan Cooper – a book that talks about how poorly software is designed today, how little usability design goes into building most applications, why the way developers think is not conducive to how users actually “use” their software and a few strategies for chaining our ways and teaching an “old dogs” some “new” tricks. So it could be me reading Alan’s book or some of the other books on interaction/usability design, or may be I’m just getting to my tipping point where I no longer tolerate or want to accept poorly design products and services. Whatever the reason, I’ve lately started to notice and get frustrated – sometimes down angry, with many every day products and services that are designed in whichever way the engineer(s) and product managers fancy with total disregard for the end-users needs and goals. In a previous post “Bad customer experience at an Apple store“, I wrote about a “store policy” that really puzzled and frustrated me. Now thinking back about that day, I realized that it was’t a bad store policy, it was BAD USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN! A policy with no reason or explanation for being that just hurts the user, and to use a common phrase, just leave a bad taste in your mouth.

The Inmates are Running the Asylum

A puzzling question: why do we put up with bad products and services? Don’t we, as the ones holding the money that these product/service driven companies want, have any saying, any power? Why is it that even though we get frustrated with a product or service we continue to buy and use them – many times when there are ‘alternatives’ that would: 1) may be have the same frustration level, but cost less (which in a ‘sick’ way makes it a bit more acceptable/tolerable) or 2) be a lot more “user-friendly” or 3) BOTH?! If I have to guess, one reason for this situation is that designing better products and services usually cost more – more time and more money – than just slapping a few lines of code or sheets of metal together and calling on the marketing and sales departments. But isn’t the risk of mistreating, hurting, humiliating and frustrating the users putting a lot more than time and money at risk? An interesting observation is that companies that put little time and money in designing a better product or service will still put trucks full of cash into their product marketing and sales strategies! Wouldn’t these resources be put to a better use in designing a better product? No amount of marketing and advertisement is going to make me feel better about a product or service that doesn’t do what I need it to do in a the way that I need it to . So the company made a sale but lost a customer. Instead, and this is specially true now-a-days that the Internet has such a power to transmit word-of-mouth buzz, how about creating a truly remarkable (sorry Seth Godin, I’m stilling your buzz-word here) “purple cow“, a product or service so truly “user-friendly” that you don’t need sales and marketing. A product or service that sales itself. A product or service that makes me wan to tell all my friends about it. Now you made a sale and got a customer (and most likely all his/her friends) for life! WOW! It looks like I’ve gone over my usability tipping point. Does this mean that I’ll throw away all the products that I own that don’t really work how I need them and that I will discontinue on using those services that take my money but don’t resolve my problems or help me reach my goals? Probably not all and probably not right away. They’ll probably be a few products and services that I continue to use despite how awkward using them is because the paint of using them is, at least not yet, greater than the benefit that I can extract from them. But one thing is certain… my eyes are a lot more open today about the importance of usability and interaction design and the huge role they play in our daily lives. I’ll probably buy my next laptop at Apple (again) and continue to use my refrigerator even though it makes me go blind at 3 a.m. (that post is coming up…) but I won’t do it quietly any more. And may be, if just enough of us get tired enough of bad products and services and each one of us decides to make a little noise, together we can have a loud voice and may be then, companies will start taking better care of the ones who keeps them open and profitable… the ones using their ” ” products and services!