If the User Can’t Find the Error Message, It Doesn’t Exist

Written by Russ on April 29, 2009 – 6:41 pm

Alternate Title: If a user can’t understand your message in 6.5 seconds, you’ve failed. If a user can’t understand an error message in 6.5 seconds, you’ve failed a lot worse.

The past weekend, I took my family to the local mega-movieplex to take in the latest in animated 3D family fun.

It’s rather established that I’m a bit of a geek–I love the interactive world, and frankly, if it wasn’t for the visual stimulation of seeing many products combined together, I probably would do all of my shopping online from the comfort of my home office.

This is serious.

I once purchased tickets to a movie in a remote location in Iowa.  From my iPhone.  While driving.

Because I could.

And, I twittered the experience, too.

Look, I might have a problem.

In preparation for the family outing, I did the usual routine (for me):

• Visit movie theater listing website
• Find earliest times that coincide with the 1-old’s nap time (experience tells me this is the best possible option for movies)
• Find the “purchase online” option (we’ve got 2 kids; the aforementioned 1-year old and a 5-year old–Avery & Sydney, respectively, if you were interested. They’re pretty adorable, but they also tend to be the single greatest factor in tardiness for our family)

The Experience
This particular Saturday was not much different–we were running late.  I was holding the baby bag and the hand of Sydney while my wife was carrying Avery as we scuttled (while looking left-right-left at every roadway) into the theater.  As per usual, I spotted the ticket dispensing kiosk and made a bee line to it, along with a handful of other adults.

I saw the AMC kiosk touch screen above and quickly tapped into it.  I found our movie and swiped my credit card–even though it didn’t ask me to do the latter.  It’s pretty infrequent that we go to movies as a family (the kids’ movies only come out so often), but in general, the pattern is pretty easy to figure out.

Nothing happened.

I looked around me, and sure enough, the whizz-click-whirr of the other kiosks seemed to be coupled with the adults fishing around for tickets and receipts in the slots below the kiosks.

It was a pretty big “WTF” moment for me.

Naturally, I tried again.

I failed.  Again.

Oh, and I’m no quitter, mind you.

I tried again.

More failure.  Not quite EPIC, but it was failure.

I looked over to see a pretty impatient family, and my frustration intensified.  I started to go through the process again, but reminded myself that I work in the “(User) Experience Design” field, and that if something wasn’t right, surely I’d find a way to let the frustrated father know what was wrong.

I started over.  Clean slate.

I looked at the screen above, and nothing stood out to me.  it was damn near maddening, to be honest.

Deep breath, Russ.  Deep breath.  The movie will still be there.

“Please touch screen to begin.”

[Logo / Branding]

[Some text that is probably promotional; it's small, not relevant]

The Sidebar with Historical Relevance (Maybe)
Then I remembered this quiz that a teacher gave me in 5th grade, I think.  The teacher passed out full sheets of paper. Two-sided, in fact.  The paper had a series of questions, the first of which was to “Read all the instructions before taking the quiz.”

Remember this quiz?

The last item, on the back side, at the bottom read something like this:

“Don’t answer anything in this quiz; do not mark up your paper. Please return it to the teacher.”

I remember doing a lot of erasing.

I also remember the teacher explaining that it was an exercise in reading instructions, which, apparently, 5th graders aren’t very good at.

Apparently, neither is a 39-year old father of two trying desperately to get into Monsters vs. Aliens 3D before the seats are all filled-up and the previews have started.

But, really, is that my fault?  Is it AMC Entertainment’s fault?

Somewhere along the line, it’s a healthy combination of both.

The Hidden Message (and Not-So-Hidden Meaning)

The message at the bottom of the screen reads:

“You may only browse the current schedule at this kiosk.
The printer ticket cutter experienced an error”

To be honest, the identification of the “printer ticket cutter” error is fairly impressive.  Heck, I didn’t need to know that much, but it was good to be so well-informed, and the notion of that error message alone kind of makes me think that someone was trying to make me understand that there was a hardware failure and it wasn’t the “stupid kiosk”, but the connected peripheral instead.

However…

The placement of the status of the machine and the error message are what caused my repeated failures.

I couldn’t see them.

I couldn’t find them in the 6.5 seconds–or less–that I actually paid attention to the screen.  And it was a lot less than 6.5 seconds, to be honest with you–as I mentioned, I’ve had some experience with these kiosks.

The failure occurred because the placement of the message was in the last possible place that I would think to look.  An error that prevents a device from functioning as expected needs to be displayed in a way that makes you understand that the core utility is unavailable.

This kiosk was a “browse only” kiosk.  It certainly wasn’t going to make AMC any money on this day–so why keep a very similar display available?

Instead, why not change the view to make people aware that this particular kiosk is out of commission?  Why not highlight–perhaps in different messaging or a different screen altogether that makes the “broken” kiosk stand out in some fashion?

A kiosk that appears different than all the others can be quickly scanned–and avoided–leaving the adult (me) not feeling like they’ve just wasted 5-10 minutes of a fidgety, anxious family.  Not only that, it prevents us from losing a spot in line and helps us to inform other victims/parents quickly.

What to do, what to do?

There’s a really simple solve for this–and I’m sure that mine is not the only one, but here goes.  Change the main screen–in fact, make sure people know that the kiosk is unable to do anything transactional.  Movie times are already posted everywhere; there’s no need for a person to browse through this kiosk, and it’s not going to make anyone any money until it’s fixed.  It only has potential to add frustration to a scenario that is generally perceived as an escape (hey, suspension of disbelief is a great way to get away from reality!), and that’s something that should be avoided.

Let’s change this screen–in a big way.  Instead of the standard “White on Red”, let’s consider reversing that.  Instead of the big logo and instructions, perhaps we should instead say:

“Currently Unavailable
Use other kiosk for ticket purchases.

We’re truly sorry for the inconvenience. Please use one of the other kiosks until we are able to fix the problem.”

That’s pretty simple.  Pretty easy to see, assuming a large enough font.  The obvious inverted color display should be enough to help inform users that something’s different, draw them in for a quick moment to understand what’s wrong and move on.

Without wasting any time standing in the wrong line or tap, tap, tapping the screen of a kiosk that cannot provide them any useful benefit–such as the tickets that they’d purchased online hours ago (and also paid a surcharge for–for the convenience).

So What?
It’s easy to forget that there’s a bigger experience than the screen we’re building or the moment that we think people are in.  A focus group wouldn’t uncover the frustration that I felt (or at least I doubt it would), so it’s important for designers to understand the environments that people are using whatever it is that they’re building.

As a father with kids, I doubt I’m a corner case.  I’m sure that I’m not nearly as popular as the tweens-through-teens and “date nighters” that are out there, but mine is a very reasonable segment.  When there is an additional cost to purchase the item for “convenience”, we damn well better make sure that we’re building something that is, after all, convenient.

Look at your user segments and your personas.  Talk to those people–either dive into your research and get a deeper understanding of their lifestyle or pick up the phone and call someone that you know who fits the mold.  In my case, I know a lot of parents who can never meet an arrival time, no matter how hard they try.  It’s probably a reason why no one shows up at 3p for a child’s birthday party.

That said, parents are the only ones who will get frustrated.  Anyone who is unable to locate your error message AND understand it is a likely candidate to become added customer service expense.  Every time something “self serve” is introduced, it really means “let us spend less on customer service by empowering the users”, or something a little less marketing-y than that.

The problem with that is basic. If you fail on an experience that does not require engagement with a human, it increases your engagement with humans and/or has the potential to subtract from your ability to sell.

Keep it findable. Keep it simple.

(There’s another lengthy blog post in here about how automated devices can lead to lower call center costs which can, in return, take away from operational costs, but that’s something else entirely.)

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »