Small Steps to Save Small Moments

Written by Russ on December 27, 2007 – 10:45 pm

Alternately titled: Holiday Potty

For those of you who don’t read Boxes and Arrows, I am an editor there, and the staff submitted some of our experiences for intended and unintended uses. This is mine, for intended uses, and it should be published for the new year. Enjoy!

As a Chicago Suburbanite, it is inevitable that my family will visit the German Christmas Market at Daley Plaza in downtown Chicago. There’s also a pretty good chance that I’ll be walking around that little village-like setting drinking from a mini-boot mug of hot spiced wine or Dinkle’s hot chocolate, momentarily transported to that tiny village.

As the father of a four year old, it is also inevitable that my daughter will find the least opportune moment to have to go to the restroom. Since my wife is 30-some-odd weeks pregnant, that generally means that there isn’t even a chance to roshambo to see who the fortunate one is that gets to accompany the mostly-adorable child to the facilities to take care of this business.

Don’t get me wrong–I can handle Daddy-duty just fine and can deftly change a diaper or wipe a nose with my sleeve on a moment’s notice, but sometimes it can be fun make a sport out of it.

After perusing the various overseas goodies from a variety of the shops, getting our pictures taken with the giant tree and with Mr. Claus, my daughter determined that it was time. THE time.

I felt a brief moment of pure, unadulterated terror as I was considering my options, until I felt a tug on my gloved hand and heard, “Daddy, I’ve really got to goooooo!”. My focus wasted no time returning and we headed out in the direction of the restrooms that people within earshot were kind enough to point to as they showed knowing smiles.

The dread set in as I realized that the “restroom” at Daley Plaza was nothing more than a plastic teal Port-A-Potty. The last I had checked, Port-A-Potties aren’t exactly made for more than one person, yet alone 1.5 people in full-on winter garb. The terror was returning as visions of shuffling around clothing while trying to get my daughter into position.

We rounded the corner and were met with the surprisingly pleasant view of a couple of tents, each surrounding its own Port-A-Potties on one side and a table on the other. There was a sturdy glass door right in the middle that resembled the type of door you would expect to see if you were looking at the entrance of any retail store from the street. We quickly entered the tent, placed the coats, etc. on the table and the rest is pretty uninteresting, and I am sure you’re thankful for that.

However, somewhere out there in a planning committee is a person who, when placing squares on a layout plan for Daley Plaza, considered that the freezing cold was not the ideal place to use a Port-A-Potty. That UX genius on a committee somewhere may a small–but very significant–change that kept our pre-holiday festivies…

Festive!

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How Comcast VOIP Penalizes The Majority

Written by Russ on December 16, 2007 – 11:36 pm

I was one of the first to adopt Comcast’s VOIP when it came to my area. (If it would have been a midnight event at Best Buy, I would have stood in line for it–that’s just the kind of geek I am). For the most part, I do not notice that I have VOIP instead of a traditional telephone service, which, ultimately plays into Comcast’s favor. There are times, like when the cable service goes out that you realize that in order to call to report the problem, well, you have to use your mobile phone, but that is also a known risk.

There are also great benefits–like a voicemail system that is kind enough to send you an email and that allows you to access your messages online. Since the Comcast system will only store my password for 24 hours and I don’t feel like Im able to navigate their system quicly enough, I mostly dial-in to listen to my messages.

About 6 months ago, Comcast upgraded their voicemail services.

Upgraded?

Okay, let me rephrase: They upgraded their voicemail system.

The degraded their VUI (Voice User Interface) for the voicemail system, in my humble opinion.

Wikipedia has blessed me with some information that I’ve found useful:

Although the United States currently has no official language, English has long been the de facto national language. Government agencies in most states and at the federal level can commonly be contacted in Spanish. Many states such as California require legislated notices and official documents to be printed in Spanish alongside English and other commonly used languages.

And:

The United States does not have an official language, but English is spoken by about 82% of the population as a native language. The variety of English spoken in the United States is known as American English; together with Canadian English it makes up the group of dialects known as North American English. 96% of the population of the U.S. speaks English well. On May 18, 2006, the Senate voted on an amendment to an immigration reform bill that would declare English the national language of the United States. The immigration reform bill itself, S. 2611, was passed in the Senate on May 25, 2006, and now has to go back to the House of Representatives in conference to make sure amendments are agreed upon.

The Spanish language is the second-most common language in the country, spoken by almost 30 million people (or 12% of the population) in 2005.

Here are my key points to Comcast:

1. I live in the United States
2. American English is the most spoken language in the country

That said, the Comcast Voicemail system previously worked as follows:

1. Dial voice mail number / your number (if calling from home)
2. Press ‘#’ if you have a mailbox on the system (otherwise listen to bizarre message that allows you to enter in a phone number and leave a message for someone on the system–huh? The voicemail number is not a publicly known number)
3. Press your phone number
4. Press ‘#’ if you’re impatient and don’t want to wait for the system to recognize you (learned by trial and error, thank you very much)
5. Press your password
6. Press ‘#’ if you’re impatient and don’t want to wait for the system to recognize you
7. Enter voicemail system, do voicemail-related things

Upon implementation of the “system upgrade”, something broke. Much like the blasted soda machine in my office, I still get tripped up by this change.

The change has caused a slight-looking shift (see bolded text below) in the way the voicemail system now works:

1. Dial voice mail number / your number (if calling from home)
2. Press ‘1′ if you wish to hear your prompts in English, ‘2′ if you wish to hear your prompts in Spanish (Pressing anything else ie ‘#’ results in you listening to the English/Spanish message all over again)
3. Press ‘#’ if you have a mailbox on the system
4. The rest is the same

This seems minor, right? Simply adjust my thinking, unlearn what I’ve already been using for over a year, realize that there is an extra button press and accept that Comcast is attempting to serve a broader customer base. The thought itself is not problematic. The implementation is. To me. And possibly to those whom I assume are in the majority of their user base.

I do not take issue with that, but I would not expect to check voicemail in France and have to identify myself as a French speaker EVERY TIME. On the contrary, I would expect to listen until I heard something in English and then press the corresponding number that would allow me to listen in my language. If France had more than one primary launguage–like Canada (see the humor?)–, then I would expect to be able to choose my primary language in my voicemail set-up, including the option to select my language at each login. For Comcast, this does not happen–although I am allowed to set my languages in my Administrative options. You’ve probably guessed it: My language preferences are all set to English.

Still, I am an English-speaking American, and I am in America. For whatever reason (okay, for statistical reasons, even), I feel as my language should be in the majority. I feel that spoken prompts of a VUI should be in English automatically and I should not have to listen to a prompt that forces me to select the option to hear prompts in English. Instead, I should be able to quickly bypass the system and get right to my voicemail, which is all that I care about to begin with. Comcast, you may have fixed something that was not even remotely broken.

However, that 1 extra keypress repeatedly frustrates me and repeatedly trips me up and more frequently than I’d care to admit, causes me to redial voicemail and try again. Or wait until I get to computer and login and listen to an audio file.

In my mind, the system should work like this:

1. Dial voice mail number / your number (if calling from home)
2. Press ‘#’ if you have a mailbox on the system
3. Press your phone number
4. Press ‘#’ if you’re impatient and don’t want to wait for the system to recognize you
5. Press your password
6. Press ‘#’ if you’re impatient and don’t want to wait for the system to recognize you
7. Enter voicemail system, do voicemail-related things

Does that seem at all familiar? It should–it’s the same system that was previously in place. Before the system upgrade.

I wonder if this change was tested on an appropriate sampling of their user base? I’ve got a hunch it probably was not.

Perhaps a better enhancement to the system would be to perform an overhaul that could be used across all of Comcast, so there is a familiarity whenever you need to call in to one of their phone numbers. By gosh, even better would be the notion that there could be some VUI globals, well, globally.

Beloved Apple hung up on me today because I tried to hit ‘0′ to get a human and find out store hours, instead of just listening to their pre-recorded information. I think it may have been a ‘5′ that would have let me do that, but I was impatient and instead, I received a friendly “Good bye”. Somewhere in the world, someone is chuckling that the VUI was unforgiving and that I was too impatient. To a degree, that almost seemed rather Steve Jobs-ish, eh?

Regardless, the United States is a melting pot, and I’ll happily admit that. The Spanish language is ever-increasing in usage and there is a large population that needs to be served in voice systems. In fact, if nothing else, this emphasizes to me that a function needs to be dedicated on systems to change back and forth between languages.

Example:

1. 1-6 - used for standard “options” (each is task-specific, otherwise, by the time you listen to 9 or 10 options, you’ve spaced-out and missed the one you needed or invariably someone has distracted you and you randomly push a button anyway)
2. 7 - paginate backward through options
3. 8 - swap language (English / Spanish)
4. 9 - paginate forward through options
5. * - system help
6. 0 - Operator
7. # - “Enter” or “Finished submitting” or a bypass for when a system offers the option of your account, phone number, etc.

Maybe I’m not exactly breaking new ground with my frustration points here. I doubt that I’ve come up with a world-class solution at this point, but I don’t think I’ve met a person who enjoys any of the VUI systems in place today. It may be time for an overhaul.

And don’t get me started on the systems that force you to be conversational with them.

Posted in Rant, Usability, User Experience | No Comments »

The Failings of Facebook, Etc.

Written by Russ on December 11, 2007 – 1:37 am

Like a lot of people, I’ve got a Facebook account. I even check it with some frequency (thanks to that BlackBerry application that allows me to check for any status updates when I’ve got some spare moments) and update it with some regularity. But I wonder, just how honest is this?

Quite a few years ago, perhaps around 2000-ish, I started writing a personal blog. In my mind, that was well before blogging was big. I used a fun little nickname (which also fails, once everyone knows who you are) and I ranted and raved about whatever I’d chose. I had enough insight to be careful not to name names, but for the most part, nothing was off-limits on my blog.

For awhile.

Shameless self-promotion took over as readership increased (and perhaps those things fed each other). There was an addiction (and it probably took me until right now to admit that) to getting those updates about comments or various other interactions on the site. I checked-in frequently, often refreshing stats on advertising and readership. I enjoyed being in the fishbowl–and knowing people were watching me. In fact, I went out of my way to try and find humorous (juvenile, immature) antics to write about for the sake of maintaining an image I was trying to portray.

In retrospect, it was definitely an interesting experience, and I’m glad that one is behind me and I’ve turned the corner on that chapter of life.

That is an experience that, I think, makes me a bit wiser now. MySpace, Facebook, Friendster and the others all draw you in and they play on your desire to know about the updates of your various connection types, or your own desire to share what it is that you happen to be doing at this moment. It is intriguing and sometimes a little exciting to get caught up in their experience.

They certainly hope that you do. There’s big money in it for them.

But, what’s in it for you? I think a lot of people do not entirely realize what some of the ramifications of being a bit too flip in online communities can be. Ask anyone who has had to write a few personas in their day and I’m guessing that, like me, they’ll tell you that they utilize these social networking sites to do a little bit of background research. I bet that they’ll also tell you that at times they’re shocked at what people are willing to display to the general public about their habits and preferences.

I am a pretty caffeinated person, but I am fairly laid back when it comes to online content. I can laugh with the best of them when I’ve got my Russ hat on. However, if I were wearing a hiring manager hat and Googling your name to see what the professional behind the resume looks like on line, well, my take on your professionalism may shift a little bit if you are not practicing a bit of discretion.

Think about that. For those of you who work in a client-services industry, do you ever use LinkedIn, FaceBook, etc. to get a view into the client or the vendor? Most likely. I’ll admit that I do. I think it’s a bit of human nature to find out just how qualified someone that you are working with–I’ve seen it done at previous employers, and with negative results for other people. Perception was shifted based upon information that was readily found online in some public forum.

And therein lies a big enough problem. Still, this is not the biggest problem that I see with the social networking sites.

The biggest problem that I see is one that involves how you interact with your friends, peers and acquaintances that you allow yourself to be connected to.

First and foremost, have you ever declined an online connection with someone on one of the social networking sites? I once had someone–a co-worker–tell me NO on LinkedIn and I did not even want to see him in passing in the hallway anymore. Awkward, thy name is Social Networking Rejection.

Have you ever accepted a connection with someone that you work with–but that you are not really social with? For example, my current boss and I are connected on Facebook. We don’t go catch a movie together or go and grab a beer together, but I think he’s a good guy and I would not work for him if I felt otherwise. That said, the instant that the connection was accepted, I noticed that I began to lightly filter things that I posted. The more that other people from work were added, the more that I noticed I became less flip and more cautious about how I would allow myself to be perceived on Facebook. I’m older, and I like to think a bit wiser, and I feel comfortable enough in my skin that it really is a lot easier to be “me” online these days, but I do not think that a lot of people are at that point–at least after reviewing over a hundred various Facebook profiles.

However, by virtue of a professional relationship, it may be wise–if not necessary–to apply a filter to your publicly available social networking information. Perhaps it is best to just maintain a private profile that does not allow itself to be easily found or added. Of course, what does that say about you? Are you too private? Are you hiding something? I think that seems silly, but I also think that history should show us that we can all be silly from time to tome.

Likewise, if I would no have allowed my boss to be my friend on Facebook, what would that say about me? I ask this regardless of what it should say–when it comes to feelings and impressions, most times what should be done gets thrown out the window. If I would have rejected his offer of friendship, would I have look like an anti-social jerkwad? Do I look like one because I don’t have a large number of friends as it is?

This is where I see the biggest failing of Facebook, etc.

Just last week, a friend of mine posted a status update that she had the just been on one of the worst interviews of her professional career. There is no way on earth that I could post that on my Facebook status. Instead, I would need to find the right way to get ahold of my closest friends and let them know what was going on–perhaps IM, email or a call on the cellphone (while driving). If one of your connections is an acquaintance and not a friend, could you broadcast a status update about a gathering that the friend was not invited to and risk hurting their feelings or having them invite themselves? There is a breakdown that starts to happen as you allow yourself to become the equivalent of “online popular”. Eventually, you may find yourself censoring yourself.

Ultimately, you return a very personal method of communication with your inner circle. That may be an instant message, an email to a small group or even 1-to-1 conversations via telephone or in-person when it comes to truly personal or sensitive matters.

FaceBook, LinkedIn, MySpace–you name it. These have become a personality promotion tool for yourself. These are tools that allow you to promote yourself in the way that you want people to see you, but ultimately not the person you really are. There is a famous quote out there that loosely states:

“I am not who I think I am, I am not who you think I am, but I am who I think you think I am.”

These tools are here to help us all take that the whatever Nth level we desire. However, the internet has a memory, and we need to remember that. Google caches pages. There are archive sites with previous information stored, and even those brief snapshots could be just enough to cost any of us something important to us tomorrow from a lapse in judgment or discretion.

This also serves as a notice to users: When you eventually do tire of your social networking flavor of the week and move on, you may want to consider revisiting your existing profiles and do a bit of house cleaning.

The realization of this, or the impact of this may not be immediate. It may take quite awhile to even recognize that it is starting to happen, and when it does, the shine will start to fade a little on the shiny new toy, no matter how many new tools, applications or vampire/werewolf attacks you may endure (I ignore those faster than you can send them, just in case you are curious). Eventually, you may move on to the next big thing–until everyone else finds you and you begin to feel that you may be censoring yourself again. And then it’s on to the next next thing. I made a nice Venn Diagram to help illustrate how this particular point may play out in the future:

Posted in Community, Social Networking, User Experience | No Comments »

The Usability of a Soda Machine

Written by Russ on December 5, 2007 – 10:52 pm

I like to think that I’m a trainable monkey; I feel like I can pick up most things, particularly those that interest me, in a fair-to-fast amount of time. However, without fail, I will walk to the company soda machine, insert my coins for that Diet Mountain Dew that looks like an ideal thirst quencher.

There is generally a 50% chance that I will end up with said beverage, of course.

And, of course, I press the Diet Mountain Dew button firmly, staring at it to look for that little orange light (that I still think should be somewhere on its face to let me know that a circuit has been connected, that my beverage is about to be dispensed) and hold on to a moment of hope that my thirst is about to be quenched.

50% of the time, I hear a familiar buzz and humm, a shifting of some hardware and a chucking sound as a delicious Diet Mountain Dew makes its delicious way through some cold, dark tunnel, past that little cold-stopping flap and safely into the basket that someone has placed a couple of folded over paper towels into, allowing our delicious beverage treats to come to rest safely and without harm.

The other 50% of the time generally results in me feeling fairly ridiculous.

When I press the button firmly, still staring at it for that little orange light…

Nothing happens. Well, nothing on the button.

SOLD OUT, at the rapid pace of about 1 second per letter, scrolls right to left across the LED display that normally tells me the proper amount of coinage to insert for a tasty beverage treat. Without fail, I press Diet Mountain Dew again, perhaps several times as if I’m impatiently waiting for an elevator and thinking that pressing the button repeatedly makes the elevator show up. If I have my wits about me or if someone else is in the room with me, I will quickly shift gears and press a secondary choice–either that tantalizing Gatorade in a 12 oz can or one of those mini little bottles of water.

Without fail–and even though I’ve been using this machine for nearly a year now–I continue to press the dispense button, even though the machine will not allow any other actions to occur until all of the letters of SOLD OUT have scrolled completely across the LED.

The flaw here is simple, and one that has no real impact on the vending machine creator; my money is in the machine and I’m going to buy something (most likely). I’m going to press another button, even if I have to wait another 10 seconds to find out just how empty the machine is. I will most likely return the next day and will most likely repeat this until my situation changes.

However, everyday, I’m going to sit and think about this soda machine and how foolish I feel for repeating the same mistakes. Everyday I’m going to add a little bit more loathing–until I begin to consider that a 12 oz Diet Mountain Dew that I should be able to get instantly has lost some of its lustre. Maybe, instead, the $5 coffee (Chicago proper has a tax of about 10.25%, I believe) gets my attention–or the <competitor brand> vitamin watery drink gets my attention, as does the elevator ride down, the walk around the building and the return, which costs me (and possibly my employer) all of that time.

Perhaps the real cost is to the employer, or the place in which vending machines are placed–with the exception of small town hotels; the vending machines there are often times the only dinner a late worker can get. The initial cost of the beverage is insignificant. The cost to my ego and pride is minor, but has sort of a cascading effect as I eventually get fed up (with myself?) and take my business (sometimes) elsewhere. I certainly do not reward my employer with the return of an extra 15ish minutes tacked on to my normal departure time.

Anyway, this diatribe should be wrapped up with a simple solution:

When a type of beverage is empty–hell, if it’s at X left–show us on the outside. I’d love to know when a machine is at capacity. The odds would seem high to me that the beverages are possibly warm since the machine was potentially refilled recently. When that number gets lower, I may be convinced to purchase two to ensure that I can have enough beverage to get me through a giant, spicy burrito. When that number is at zero–you guessed it–I’m going to go for my second choice, my third choice, or the phone to call the person responsible for calling the soda-machine-filler-person. Even better–add a wifi card in the machine, let it on the wifi network and have it send a nice little message when the machine reaches a certain level of dispensed beverages and the soda-machine-filler-person can get an SMS, email or some other nice little notification.

And me, well, I get to not dwell on this topic any longer, at the very least.

Posted in Usability | 1 Comment »

So, Just What Exactly Is “Community”, Anyway?

Written by Russ on December 1, 2007 – 1:46 pm

I kind of hate those informational pieces that start out with a definition, but somehow, it really makes sense to start out this way. 

Wikipedia says this:

A community is a social group of organisms sharing an environment, normally with shared interests. In human communities, intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks and a number of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness.

I’ll do a little dissecting here–A community is a group of people (users, members) that come together in a single location (website) and have some similar beliefs, values, goals, etc.

A bunch of people who have something in common and go to a single location to do something about it.

People, with [some] shared thing(s) who frequent a same location and interact.

Wow, I think I got it.  And to think, I’ve been working in community for a few years now and have yet to actually force myself to come up with something pretty earth-shatteringly basic.

Awesome!  We’ve got the hard part–the definition that seems to make a lot of sense and seems to be pretty basic–down.

Now what?

Well, now we have to figure out exactly who those users are (demo/ehtnographics), what the thing(s) are that they share/have in common, and how they want/need to interact.

And the answer, from this Information Architect’s perspective is a pretty standard one:

It depends.

And that makes this the point where everyone should start to roll up their sleeves, dig in their heels and truly try to figure out, well, as much as can be figured out.

It’s also where I’m going to stop for this post, because a lot has been accomplished on getting into the depths of defining your community–we’ve come to a common agreement on what, exactly, community is, as a whole.  Not what “our” community is for this effort (project), but we’ve got a good starting point.  We’ve got our first slide in the PowerPoint presentation that we’ve got to give to the client tomorrow morning at 9am, which really doesn’t help you much if this is my first post and you just happened to find it, well, now.

It’s also a pretty good point because this is really where it can start to get complicated.  I’ve worked with building a variety of online communities, so we should know that online is going to be the focus.  For the intents of what I’ll be talking about, I’ll most likely focus on what I’ve worked on in the past–but I’m always looking for something more, something different and untried and that always exists, even if it is pure speculation. 

I’m sure there will be plenty of that, too.

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