2 cents on the world of disconnected user-experience!
I know it’s been a while (in fact a long time) since I wrote my last essay. Let’s say, I got into what I call “the writing inertia”; an interesting topic (at work) today, fortunately, got me out of this vicious loop.
We had our ritual bi-weekly design meeting at our company and an interesting topic was discussed namely “ how can one create a seamless design that spans multiple cultures/demographies/geographies…./…./….?”, mind it, each and every word there is a topic by itself. My colleagues spoke very passionately about instances in their design careers where they experienced what I term as “the disconnected experience” in the product/service they were involved in; a lot of lovely and intriguing examples.
Well, I thought this is certainly an interesting topic and let me remember and write about instances in my product career where I was directly associated with this topic. So, here we go:
- An example of insufficient design: In one of my earlier start-ups, we built a very powerful application that allowed field construction workers (e.g. foremen, engineers, superintendents, crew members) to plan their work for their shift, execute the work as per the plan and analyze the execution pattern at the end of the day for future efficiencies. A very popular tool with our users. Many construction sites started embracing this product barring sites in cold locations (e.g. Canadian sites or sites in Alaska). Our product management sense prevailed and we did anticipate the potential challenges, we also decided to fly down to a few construction sites (feel it first hand) and interview users. Not to our surprise, we were welcomed by very hostile users (in fact, one foreman told us in an angry tone: “Guys, thanks to your application, I have lost 30 minutes of the time I usually spend with my kids”). We said “wow” and started unearthing the cause of concerns and you might wonder it’s silly and silly it was! Our application had a lot of (UI) cells where users had to make a data entry and at cold places (being a field application), users typically use the application with “construction gloves”. Whilst the hardware was capable enough to be touch-sensitive, the application wasn’t sufficiently accommodative. Thanks to the gloves, the user ended up spending more time than usual to make the data entry as gloved fingers touched multiple controls at the same time and caused chaos. We did anticipate this in advance and did provide a voice feature to read out entries. The experience of the voice feature was so hidden that people seldom used the same. A classical example of an insufficient design that broke the experience.
- An example of casual design: In the same start-up, our primary market was the US hence our product websites showcased examples of our products, the calculations behind those products in US Customary Units; a slight deviation from the metric system understood in India. Our prospects in India started questioning the fundamentals of the product due to this silly mistake (which ended up as a costly mistake). A classical example of unintentional casual design.
- An example of non-empathetic design: In my most recent start-up, we implemented a few powerful algorithms to help our users (e.g. marketers, sales heads) to understand the intent behind any human action in their target audience. One such algorithm helped these users unearth behavioral undercurrents in their target audience. The algorithm used complex conditional probability models to predict undercurrents and we were very proud of our achievements. Having said that, the interface was not designed for the users who were expected to consume the outcome of the algorithm. The proud moment was short-lived and we had to go back to the drawing board to provide a more empathetic design. A great example of a non-empathetic design.
I am sure, each one of us has examples (probably better than the ones outlined above). Please keep your examples flowing; it’s a great learning experience for all of us. I am sure you agree!
Originally published at https://www.raghsforte.com on September 9, 2020.
