Hey Dan

I have this feeling that I am wrong about my view of the world. It is my belief that the design of product has a great deal of thought and analysis put in to it. In some building a person is thinking about how to make the product I use better and easier to use. This sounds like a job someone has. I am beginning to think I am wrong.

Now, I know that the people who built this products but a lot of thought into them. Engineers work long hard hours to make new products work. Marketing people read market data about what product we want and how best to sell them. There are even people thinking up new products. What is missing is some one asking how you the customer want this product to work.

Let us look at an example of the cell phone. I have a cell phone that will surf the Web, store almost 1000 numbers, dial numbers by the sound of my voice, and ring in an almost limitless number of ways. These are all features of this product. Someone thought up theses features. Then a marketing person asked customers if they would pay for them. They may have also asked what was important about these features. Then an engineer built this cell phone and tested it. At some point I bought this one based on the features I wanted and price I would pay.

While this cell phone is a quality product it does not work well. Most of the extra features are hard to use. Most of these features I only use when I wanted to show off how cool my phone was. The things that I do use a cell phone all the time for are hard to use and not intuitive. Take redialing the last number I called.

To redial the last number called:

Start by opening the phone
Press MENU button
Call History is the selected menu option so, press the OK button
Outgoing Calls is the selected menu option so, press the OK button again
The last number dialed is the selected menu option so, press the OK button again
This brings up information about that call so, press the TALK button
Phone dials

This is five different button presses to complete something that I can do on almost any house phone in one. At no point during this process is the next step obvious, based on the interface of a standard phone. For example a button labeled ‘redial.’ Lastly if you have missed a call and/or someone has left you a message you have to cancel those messages before starting this process.

If you have a cell phone think about how easy it is to do the following things:
Answer a call
Call a person not in your phonebook
Call a person in your phonebook
Save a number to the phonebook
Check your voice mail

Then answer these questions:
How many actions does it take?
How many more buttons presses and menus then a house or office phone?
Is the interface clearly labeled?
Did you know how to do it the first time you tried?
Could your grandmother, child, or family technophobe do this?

I am not complaining about my cell phone. The fact that I can call someone, while riding in someone else’s car 1800 mile from home, is amazing. I just do not think anyone is really collecting data about how to make it easier to use. I am beginning to think the same it true about all products. Think about how easy it is to open a package of candy, delete a spam message from you email inbox, or turn the dome light on in your car. Do I really need to read the fine print direction to open cold medicine packages?