I'm an Idiot Who Doesn't Know How to Use a Telephone
Every time I call my little brother I get his voice mail. That's not such a big deal in itself. He's a busy New Yorker, after all. But I know I'm going to have to sit there waiting for about two minutes before I can leave my little message. First, there are the five rings before it goes to voice mail. Then there's the his slightly overlong greeting. Both of these waits I can stand. It's that last 20 seconds or so that kills me, when his voice mail system explains to me how to leave a message--as if this is 1906 and I've never used a telephone before!
"You may leave your message after the tone. When you are finished, you may hang up, or press pound for more options. To leave a callback number, press six. To page this person, press star star." And so on.
This is an excellent example of software (because of course, voicemail systems are software) with two classic design mistakes that end up frustrating and wasting the time of most (let's guess 99.9% or more) users.
Mistake one is to let the novice user drive design to the extent that it imposes on sophisticated users. Almost all novice users of something as simple as voicemail will become sophisticated users within a matter of moments. I'm talking about the part of the message that informs me that I may hang up when I'm finished leaving my message. Not to rant and rave, but is there anyone with a telephone who has never encountered an answering machine before?
The second mistake is allowing seldom-used features to impose on everyday users. Here I'm talking about the instructions about leaving a callback number or paging this person. These are two features that I've never in my life used, and I doubt most people ever have. And if I were to understand why it might be necessary for me to leave a callback number (most cellphones capture the caller's number without them having to do anyting) or page my little brother (I'm calling him on his cellphone, after all--what's a page going to do?), then in all likelihood I would already know how do perform this task and would not need the helpful voice to instruct me every single time I leave a message.
This sounds like some dude ranting about his pet peeve. Well, OK. There's some of that here. But it gets worse. I assumed that, perhaps, this annoying tag message was a "feature" that could be turned on and off somehow. I called my own cell phone recently to see if I had a similar message, and, of course, I do. So I attempted to dig into my voice mail options to see if there was a way to configure this. There is not.
Even if there were, defaulting to the idiot/advanced features message is simply inexcusable software design. Think of the millions upon millions of hours that people around the world have wasted listening to instructions on how to perform the simplest task and then more instructions on how to use features they don't care about. Even if you calculate the cost of the wasted time using minimum wage, the amount would be staggering.
Windows XP, Word, and other consumer software are rife with such time-wasting and distracting features (paper clip and tail-wagging dog, I'm talking to you!). It's a tough balancing act, I know, to satisfy the most common users without scaring off new users.
But voicemail makers of the world, you are the worst offenders. I beg of you. Stop wasting our time. We are not idiots. No one has to tell us how to hang up the danged phone.
Usability Trade-Offs and Bean Counting
Mistake one is to let the novice user drive design to the extent that it imposes on sophisticated users. ... The second mistake is allowing seldom-used features to impose on everyday users.
These are pet peeves of mine as a user also, but these are real issues in software design, and well worth bringing up for discussion.
I have been in the situation a few times in which the client or subject matter expert whom I'm working with suggested a certain design or feature that is oriented towards making things easier or more clear to the novice or new user, but as Rob points out, so often these kinds of well intentioned features are the very things users will come to hate (and which will limit their productivity) after they've worked with the software for a few weeks. This situation has come up for me in the context of both shrinkwrap/turnkey software and back-office internal-only corporate software.
In my limited experience, there is typically an existing user group that is being migrated away from either a manual process, or more likely, from an old keyboard-centric DOS/green-screen UI. Either way, the underlying assumption is "A lot of the users are not savvy with Windows/Web user interfaces." (Incidentally, I think this sort of concern is dwindling rapidly as we forge into the 21st century--I saw this more often in the late 90's.)
On some occassions I have made attempts to explain that the particular design/feature might have unintended consquences. I try hard to not send the message "This is a bad idea," but rather "This is a good idea, but it might have some unintended consequences that you might regret later."
I have had success framing the issue as one where we need to calculate the trade-offs in a strategic way. For example, if there are indeed a large number new, unfamiliar users that will be confused by a "power user" interface, then we can add niceties to the UI to make it less daunting for these users. However, we have to keep in mind that these users are only going to be new users for a short time, and after that they will be "power users" for perhaps years in the future. Is the risk of loss of user productivity/satisfaction for years to come worth the soothing balm you are seeking to apply to the user's transition period to the new software?
If both are important, do you have the time and budget to develop *both* the new-user interface and the power-user interface? Similarly, do we have time to figure out ways we can design a power user interface that can have some new user adornments? If there is no time to do both, my advice would be to accept the painful transition for the new users, try to prepare them for it with training, and invest instead in the long term productivity and satisfaction of the entire user base.
I suspect that the real problem behind the valid pet peeves Rob describes with voice mail interfaces (and which I've experienced similarly with things like ATMs, fax machines, cameras, and other consumer electronics) is "bean counting," much the same way that automobile manufacturs will calculate the cost of lawsuits vs. the cost of adding a safety feature.
Some software person may have indeed explained to a management person the very point of view I present in the preceding paragraphs, but the management person(s) follow thought processes like "Is it better to annoy a bunch of people who will never call my support line to complain, or confuse a smaller number of people who *will* call my support line because they *are* too stupid to use the phone. ;-)
Dan
P.S. A must read for this topic area: Alan Cooper's The Inmates are Running the Asylum.
The inmates SHOULD run the asylum!
ATMs, too. Amen.
First of all, ditto to the entire post. Almost all cell carriers' VM systems were clearly programmed for use by the unfathomably stupid.
As far as ATMs, I've recently noticed that my megabank's machines now have a dedicated "Fast Cash" button, such that once you enter your PIN, you can shoot directly to the "Choose an amount" page. What's more, you can store a default value, so that in the future you can just push one button and get your dollars.
And it only took them 20-odd years to come up with that!
Totally agree
The endless litany of voicemail options usually makes me just hang up in disgust instead of leaving a message. Is there a button I can press to end this nonsense and just LEAVE MY MESSAGE? I'm still searching the internet for a solution.
I don't think we have that
I don't think we have that in Europe. I didn't know you could do so many things in a voice mail, I thought the point was to simply leave a message.
So, here, you only have to listen to the silly "you have called to number 123455..." (as if you didn't know which number you were calling to, or if, otherwise, you were going to realise that one of the numbers was wrong) "...please leave your message after the beep". And that's all. No callback stuff (it's always easier and faster to just mention your phone number in the message) and no beepers options (who has a beeper, anyway?) (I think pager and beeper are the same thing)
Soooo true
Soooo true