Stupid users

The title might feel pompous.
After I add my motto; Never underestimate the stupidity of a human being - It surely sounds even worse.

My excuse is that I admit my stupidity also as a designer. We tend to overlook the challenges users have in their interaction with our designs. The issue is the same, the important thing is that we study the issue - what ever the point of view may be.
Demystifying Usability has some good thinking on How to deal with Stupid Users.

The main points to remember are:
1. Users who have trouble with designs and feel stupid lack a key behavior required in using most interfaces: Discovery and Exploration.
2. Users who struggle with interfaces and feel of incompetent do not notice or use features.
3. Users who struggle with designs that do not feel intuitive are not comfortable with interface elements that are too different.
4.Users who do not make interface design distinctions ignore complex or multi-step tasks.
5. Users that lack the confidence with computers have a thinner comfort barrier and a general helplessness.

Design for errors

Example of Nielsens usability principle "design for errors" emerges in this "there I fixed it" -type of improvement of attached traditional finnish craftmanship.

Another good principle of "keep it simple" has failed in this case and there is some reported cases, when somebody has carefully closed the door behind - and locked a poor soul into the hut. Then again the repair (red string going inside the door) is kind of simple too ;)

Facebook now showing clearly what information is shared to applications

Facebook changed the way they present the information shared to 3rd parties through applications.

Now the information shared to 3rd parties is listed in clear language and creates a feeling of trust through it's transparency.

Xbox Live credit card hoax disquised as Automatic Renewal

I spotted an interesting line from my credit card bill, which said Xbox live 19,90.

This was clearly unauthorized charging since I paid extra attention to my choice of Live membership and payment method after warnings from my colleague who had previously experienced continuous charging of credit card.


I decided to remove my card data as once from my xbox. -Unfortunately this move had been thought at Microsoft headquarters. Removal was not possible to do on the xbox!! Instead the prompt asked to visit http://www.xbox.com/support for membership info and how to turn of automatical renewal...

At this point I can give you a hint. It's nowhere near there. You might get a better start from the address https://live.xbox.com. -The end result is not any better, but least that's wehere it is supposed to be..

The guidance what you'll in the end find is useless:
 

Ok, lets find that billing information then manually...
You'll probably find several errors from the system:

 

But if you hit the right spot, you'll find your billing information:

 

There it is finally; "Cancel my service".
-But let's first think for a moment that which service it was you wanted to cancel.......





Ok, here we go. Thumbs up everybody!!


 

Still not possible. -It Really is made impossible to cancel the automatic renewal and charging from the credit card!

Time for some conclusions:


I consider this a criminal credit card hoax, with the difference that this is done globally, diguised as legitimate and sealed with the human lazyness and self accusations. -And definitely not good businness on the long run.

Next: Calls to Consumer Agency and Microsoft.

Feature improvement?

Apple shows an example, how to take a hit like a man and turn it into a success.

There is a new feature in the new iPod Shuffle:

You remember the last years model - which didn't have buttons, only voice UI.

This is solved then - even without seeing the figures.
-Let's see what happens on the touch phones area - are HW buttons getting even fewer or will there be new rise of user control.

Report a problem - Google style

Google has realized it. Keeping something up to date or in order requires continuous feedback. And for continuous feedback, reporting needs to be simple and Effortless.
-See the video from Google to see how they have succeeded to implement these two drivers.

Ravintokoodi.fi - try to sign in

I signed myself to Ravintokoodi.fi few months ago. I thought that it's a great service.

Not that there is anything wrong (quite the opposite) with the content, but after few months of trying it seems just annoying just because they didn't know how to make the sign in.

1) If all social web services (with confidential content) use cookies and allow Keep me signed in, why doesn't this obsolete service containing only my nutrition details?!
2) At least it could hold the username in place - after all I don't have a slightest clue how this service wanted it..
3) And finally, why do I need to go to a different site (www.pirkka.fi) to reset my password?!.
3.1) It would be nice if the link went straight to appropriate password reseting page instead of www.pirkka.fi mainapge to start the quest from.

Send a postcard with your own photo from your mobile phone - Posti/Itella

Sending a postcard with your own photo from your mobile phone sounds like a great idea. -Heard about it from my friend and rushed into Posti (or Itella) site to download the Mobile Postcard (Mobiilipostikortti) application.
There's so many things wrong in the application that it's unbelievable that somewhere there is a Symbian coder, who is so unaware of basic principles.
You need to know about hidden and visible drives on your mobile to find your photos and know how to change seccurity settings to avoid  question about wheather application can access your data. -And finally, there's no preview the picture you are sending - at any point. -Not even thumbnails in the folder view. Which I managed to get visible only that one time I took the pictures below :/

-My god XP

 

 

 

How to connect Bluetooth device

I'm currently having my honeymoon moment on my sofa with my brand new wireless keyboard.
I cannot remember when I was this much exited. -After all, I think that consuming is buying possibilities. And this product enables so much for me =) Keyboard, integrated mouse, music controls, zooming, shortcuts and what's best. -The setup was filled with grace!

Check out the second bullet in the picture below: "Using your keyboard, type in the passkey. Passkey 3777"
You have the keyboard, other product provides the code - do you need to make it more complicated?

You could think finding number 51 would be a piece of case

You could think finding number 51 would be a piece of case.
But in this case there has definitely been 'something else' in the designers mind. -Standard paper size and/or some readymade mechanics might be the good guesses..
Definitely this is as far from user oriented design you can go. Infact it almost feels like it is deliberate internal joke, which ended into production..

*update 17.4.2010*
Now compare to This one:

Photo albums ease of use

So far I have been force to use Flickr web albums because of its appealing simple looks and UI. When lookin photos, you don't want anything extra to bee visible. Difference between Picasa and Flickr is evident at least to my eyes.

Not that selection of webgallery for an Average Joe would be based on one single interaction, but still this is something to consider: In my default PC viewer(IrfanView) next picture is selected by simply using arrow keys. Also Facebook and Picasa has the same functionality. When using Flickr I have to use my mouse to click a small thumbnail to get next picture..
-So of to Picasa I go, thaks for great time Flickr. Disadvantages in this change are the looks and complexity of Picasa but advantages are simple and intuitive use and the fact that now I have all my stuff behind one Google account :)

Good guidance can patch bad design - into some extent

Bar Balls in Kajaani earns a honorary mention of this explanation how to get the hand dryer working. But the thing is that the design should either implicate the place of the sensor or the sensor should have been placed else where..

This carefully made guidance also tells a clear story how big problems products can create for the users and companies on service branch.

Celebrating tacit knowledge through service design

Even a simple service product or infrastructure -like rail transport- forms an information system including hidden knowledge and inbuilt need for learning.
It took me some 15 years of intensive railroad usage to learn that after the announcement "Train leaves from gate 2", there is exactly 3 minutes time. Today, after 18 years, I learned that there is a yellow color coding in the timetable posters for leaving trains in opposite to arriving.

These information bits are examples of tacit knowledge, which would be useful if know, but is either difficult or considered less important to communicate. In modern world, consumers do not necessarily have time or will to start learning. -Experience should be readily available in full extent.

One task for service design is to find ways to communicate these service and company specific information bits, celebrate those and build a better brand and user experience through those.

-After all, you would like the customer to see your product as excellent as you see it, wouldn't you?

How much does Nordea value private customers

Web page design follows the same rules of placement priorization and click counts as mobile UI design does. For a bank web page, a netbank access might be the Most used feature for Most of the customers - which would mean that it should be highly visible and require only one click..

Todays example is from Nordea. If you try to find a netbank access from the front page of Nordea banking services, you can easily evaluate how important a private customer really is for Nordea.


Really. -Do find the right link from the first pic!

The second picture illustrates further, just How important you are..

Screenshots: Nordea website 14.4.2009

*Edit 15.4.2009*
As Nordea pointed out today, the site I'm referring is the business site as .com end should have told me.. Following picture illustrates how web access in private banking site (.fi) is shown. It still requires two actions..

Hilarious MacBook parody

Timer for engine heating

Time to plug your Toyota into winter-AC.
My first encounter with my current heating timer was filled with amaze. Is this the most perfect example of design and mechanics not working together or is this the example of what happens when R&D hasn't used any UX-input.

Is it really so that nobody figured that I most probably want to toggle the power for NEXT few hours, and not for the past.
Secondary scenario would be that I come from work at afternoon, and want to set the heating on for the next morning. This would mean that the mysterious opening should be a bit wider, to reach times at the range of 15 hours. Now the hours available for settingare between 18-24 hours.

Facebook jamming emails with nonsense

I'm a regular user of Facebook and rather untrendly consider it as a good service. I have been complaining earlier about the security issues in article Contradictions and safety in Facebook. Fortunately they made some changes and provided more options as article Facebook makes improvements for privacy describes, but unfortunately there is too many options now. There is basicly three levels of friends in Facebook users, friends who you keep contact to also other vice, friends that you want to maintain but are not so close to you and then the ones that you wish to add, because you know them, but don't want to open your life to. -Why not make ready made options based on these three groups?

Another thing which is bugging me (and probably millions of others), is that I need to have a dedicated email account to direct the amazing amount of spam which coming from Facebook when my friend comments on my picture or changes his status.
-Why can't I turn of this function if I already visit the service twice a day and have the update RSS feed coming to my intranet page?!
-I would imagine that that kind of mass posting is already doing something for global use of data transfer statistics ;D

CORRECTION: There actually is an option to turn off the email notifications. Actually 2 pages of option where to choose the occasions you wish to be notified. (See PIC) -How PC can you go?

A brief moment at the printer

Checking the paper on tray 2 can end up spending slightly longer time at the printer -waiting it to restart.

Then again, using the power switch occasionally seems to make these technology wonders work better..

VR bicycle transport -getting even worse

I'm on holidays. One of the best ways to travel around is to use train and have a bike with you. The weakest point of this plan is public transport and VR. (Earlier post here)
At the moment I'm waiting for the train to leave from Turku to Helsinki. I placed my bike to the holder, which is clearly not designed for the comfort of the bike handles. And the situation is not going to get better when two other bikes are put by mine.
This time the situation differed in that sense that conductor was standing right next to me, also during the phase when I inserted my 50 cent to lock the bike, didn't succeed and didn't get my coin back. He just commented that bikes do not need to be locked because they need reservations..
This bike rack is an perfect example of design for public use, where too little time and consideration is used. By doing bad design into investment products like trains, the design stays there bugging users (public and staff) for tens of years! -The problem is partly related to sourcing of design and tight budget policies. There should be good understanding on both sides to create side budgets and schedules if certain problems require special attention.

I have been commenting about VR also earlier:
VR - green image of rail transportation vs. bikes
VR and how to wash your face vs. floor
VR ja uusi uljas juna-aika


This is an example how to fit my bike and the one of an crampy old drunken finnish outdoor-enthusiast and the one of german middle aged bike tourist.
-At some point I decided to leave two others and the commanding officer to do the dirty work and check the damages later..

User name for frequent flyer profile

Since 2000 I have been a member of both Star Alliance and One World frequent flyer programs. And every summer I face the same problem when I'm about to book a holiday flight. -There's no way i can remember my user name thus not being sure if i remember my password right. Airliners have a fairly strict rules about how user names or passwords should be structured. And calling for help is usually a long way.

The same year as this contradictive union with airliners started, I was highy amazed that there was a person in my company who refused to use Windows machines because of the unreasonable need to change password every 40 days. -Because everybody writes it down underneath the keyboard on a Post-It (although he encrypted it for three times before writing it down, it was too risky for him). Later he changed the company, but his strong opinion has been in my mind since.

I have written about this earlier too, but this time I wanted to point out also that services should also consider using reasonable security measures to enable people to use good passwords and systems attached. Next time I'll log myself into this page, I will probably use password like 'password'.