by Patty Azzarello
Really?
I was traveling in Cincinnati recently, and was greeted with the following in my hotel room. I was staggered.
I removed the actual hotel name, but this was real.
Is it just me, or are these 19 steps to program a wake-up call a bit much?
Technology and Humans
I built a successful career in technology by following one guiding principle:
Make the technology less painful for humans to use.
Focus as much (if not more) energy on the human interface as on the technology itself.
Donât ever show of the richness of your technology in the user interface.Â
Focus completely on the userâs task. Understand how people are thinking about the task they need to do, and help them do it the way they are inclined to do it.
The point is never to show that your technology is smart and powerful, itâs to make your user feel smart and powerful.
Pattyâs 3 Laws of Technology
(Break them at your own business peril.)
1. Technology should not rob people of their humanity
2. If you present technology instead of a human interface it HAS TO WORK
3. Technology should never make people feel stupid
Here is what I mean:
1. Technology should not rob people or their humanity.
Probably the best example of this are those voice automated systems that make you talk to a computer on the other end of the phone.  I donât know about you, but I hate this. I would feel much less robbed of my humanity if I was greeted with a computer voice that said…
I know Iâm not a person like you are, and that youâd rather talk to a person, but we think we can help you faster if you are willing to give this a try. We wonât make you talk to a computer and pretend itâs a person, and feel like an idiot shouting answers and phrases repeatedly because we canât actually understand them⦠Please help us route your call by keying in your account number and answering ONE question â then youâll be connected to a real person.
Any time your user interface makes a person translate something they are thinking or feeling into a narrow input that your technology will accept, you have robbed them of some humanity.
2. If you present technology instead of a human interface it HAS TO WORK
If you want me to sign up for your service on your website, donât require a special new version of a flash plug in for me to do it. Donât invite me to leave you feedback, only to have a link that doesnât go anywhere. Donât optimize your interface so much for one platform or environment that it doesnât work right in others.
When something goes wrongâ¦
A human can recover and use creativity and judgment (and opposable thumbs)Â if the transaction does not work. Technology just sits there there not working, and the user goes away having failed to complete the task.
I was duped recently at the airport when I accepted a boarding pass sent to my mobile phone and got to an airport that didnât have the ability to read it.
I was promised I could pick up a prescription after hours, from an automated pharmacy dispenser, and they had mis-spelled my name when they input the prescription so there was no way I could pick it up and no way for the machine to recover. There was a phone support number on the machine connecting me to a line which was un-manned after hours.
Make it fool proof
Test everything. One of the best software tests I ever saw was a CEO who sat on the keyboard. The system broke. Test your technology in ways users are not supposed to use it, because they will always do things they are not supposed to do.
Use Standard (boring) components
Go out of your way to use technology components that are as standard and hard to break as possible.
Donât try to make your screens extra-pretty, or use bleeding edge widgets and gadgets in your user interface because they amuse you, you are trying to be impressive, or you want to try something new â especially if if there is to be no-human back up when it doesnât work.
Set your standard to âIt has to workâ. Not âIt has to be leading edgeâ.
Donât lose customers
If you replace humans with technology, if it doesnât work you will lose customers because you have given them no possible alternative but to go away. There is a corollary to this law which is âDonât make people work hard to give you their moneyâ.
3. Technology should never make people feel stupid
This issues is starting to go away as technology is actually working better and young people are immune to thinking that it is their fault if it doesnât work.
Complexity is the enemy
But when technology is unnecessarily complicated and hard to use, it makes (us old) people feel inadequate because we canât accomplish the task at hand.
I donât think I have ever got through a self-checkout lane without requiring assistance from a clerk and feeling a bit stupid.
If you buy wine, someone still needs to check your ID. You Fail.
If you by an item that is too large to put in the bag, the system will freeze because it canât sense that you put it in the bag after you scan it. You fail.
If you buy organic produce, it doesnât have a selection for organic. You Fail.
At this point you are given the choice either to wait for help (you feel stupid) or to steal money from the store because you canât find a way to pay the organic up-charge (robbed of your humanity, and being made to work too hard to give them your money).
The good, at least mitigating, news is that most self-checkouts follow rule number 2. It HAS to work â so they put human backup there.
Making technology better for humans is good for business.
Apple is an obvious example. But even putting Apple aside as an outlier, I can tell you that in every business where I had responsibility to bring technology products to market, focusing on the human interface was good for business.
We put extra effort on the userâs thinking process, the user interface, the install, the demo, the âstart hereâ experience, the documentation, the customer support help desk, and the sales and contracting documents and processes.
By doing this, my businesses were able to steal share from competitors who were overly focused on the features of their technology alone, and tortured their customers and partners because of it.
What do you think?
Has technology ever tortured you? Do you think it helps business to make technology easier to deal with? There’s a comment box below, what’s your view?
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Patty Azzarello works with executives where leadership and business challenges meet. She has held leadership roles in General Management, Marketing, Software Product Development and Sales, and has been successful in running large and small businesses. She writes at Patty Azzarello’s Business Leadership Blog. You’ll find her on Twitter as @PattyAzzarello
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Patty and Liz,
I laughed right out loud at those wakeup call instructions — what were they thinking? I’m glad you took a photo, Patty, because it would have been too unbelievable otherwise.
I think about user interface anytime I’m on a phone queue or lost in a customer support telephone maze. I’m a fan of elegant simplicity in lieu of many bells and whistles and wish more companies would, after designing their technology interface, step back and ask themselves, “How can we make this simpler and more straightforward for users? What can we cut to give them a core experience that really works?” Then they need to keep asking those questions again after each slash of a feature.
Bloat in customer service technology is as bad as feature bloat anywhere else.
Hi Tammy,
I just know that you and Patty would so get along.
I loved this post for the very same reasons you do.
We so often don’t check what we do from the other guy’s point of view.
It’s like the day that someone shipped a whole bunch of black pages to a client. “Didn’t you look at what came out of the copier?”
That’s the worst wakeup call note ever. What happened to:
1) Call the front desk
2) Specify a time
3) Go to sleep
Thanks Andy and Tammy,
here’s hoping more companies “get it”
over time.
Treating people like people is good for business.
Patty
OK, let’s assume that by a law of the Universe they are stuck with this nightmare of a phone system and then see if there is anything at all we can do to simplify those instructions.
Hmmmm…
To schedule a wake-up call:
1. Pick up receiver.
2. Press “Messages” button.
3. Dial 82222.
4. Enter your desired wake-up time â for example, “645” for 6:45 or “1100” for 11:00.
5. Press “A” for a.m. or “P” for p.m.
6. Tell us when you need this call:
– One time only, dial 95. [see below]
– Every day of your stay, dial 35.
– Every weekday (Mon-Fri), dial 65.
– Saturday and Sunday, dial 75.
7. Hang up.
I’ve left off the last three steps because I’ll bet that if you just hang up right after hitting that stupid “K” for “keep” (you *did* figure out that “K” is “5,” right?), your phone will still keep your choice. If not, then just add “999” to the end of each sequence in step 6 â for example, make the sequence for “One day only” 95999 instead of simply 95.
OK, now for the “cancel” sequence:
To cancel all scheduled wake-up calls:
1. Pick up receiver.
2. Press “Messages.”
3. Dial 27. [see below]
4. Hang up.
As above, if those last three keystrokes really are needed, step 3 would instead read, “Dial 27999.”
Bottom line: Although it would no doubt delight your guests to take time from their travel schedule to become so learned, you don’t have to teach them everything about your crummy phone system. Just tell them the shortest path they must take to deal with it.
Cliff,
My bet is the person who wrote those instructions hates the phone system and wants everyone to share his or her pain. heh heh
Liz, I can just imagine the person who received the black pages…bunches of little question marks hovering over their head as they stared at them.