Intuitive user guidance - the parkometer

Some days ago we have been visiting a pitoresque little town in northern Switzerland. Having found a parking lot near the center. The parking lot was well equiped with a number of parkometers. Those little machines allowing payment for parking time.

Usual user guidance of such a machine is:

Start at the top. An old fashioned LCD display shows wether the machine is currently in use by indicating the current time. Bellow a slit to drop coins is located. Dropping coins makes the display to indicate the so far payed parking time. Pushing a usually green button below will print the parking ticket to be placed visibly in the car.

There is an other concept for the same purpose. The machines, probably second generation, exhibiting not only a display, a slit for the coins but also a numeric keyboard. This particular parking lot was one of those. Each parking field has a numeric indicator which needs to be entered to the payment machine. The ticket is only considered as a receipt.

However, the location of the interaction elements such as display, green button, slit for coins and numeric keyboard is not really adapted to the new concept.

Starting at the top the display indicates the current time and date. Next the slit for coins is waiting for input. - Really? - Below the coin entry element the numeric keyboard is located and at the very bottom the same green button can be found. So, how does this work?

Starting from the top we start dropping coins which will not be accepted by the machine. Why? - I would guess that you have to drop coins until the desired parking time is payed, enter the numeric identifier of your parking field, then push the green button in order to get a receipt.

Several attempts would not lead to successful payment.

After a while I would discover this little note at the bottom. A little sticker communicating the right process.

1. Enter the identifier of your parking field
2. Drop coins for the parking time
3. Push the green button
4. Take your receipt

Logical? Intuitive?

At least the sticker implies that I am not the only one...

MS Outlook: My daily struggle

As an employee I am forced to use the tools, such as MS Outlook, my employer provides. For my work I have to send a couple of e-mails per day. And I can not get used to the first fact, that the autocompletion function in the e-mail’s TO field is not very smart. Furthermore, I can not get used to the second fact that when using the search function for contacts in the contacts database, no matter if my personal or the corporate one, I will never find the contact I am searching for on my first try since some people I know by first name while others I know by last name, not speaking of the names I am constantly spelling the wrong.

Autocompletion: Why is it that MS Outlook can not search through the global contacts database in order to make meaningful suggestions? 

Search: Why is it that MS Outlook can not find an entry in its contacts database if I am not typing the name in the same order as the contact name is saved in the contacts database? In addition, why is it not possible to perform the search globally through the local and through the corporate database at the same time?

There are plenty of examples where both of the problems are solved. Even in other applications by the same vendor. Where the software does a good job in facilitating user interaction.

How to improve the situation of my daily struggle? - Here, some solutions to get around.

1. Define a rule in MS Outlook which forwards each and every e-mail to your google mail account where you have large scale archiving and extended search functionality for free. However, I did not yet find a solution to easily import the entire corporate MS Outlook contacts database to my google mail account. Only drawback is that your employer might not like it.
2. Connect your iPhone or Mac running OS X snow leopard - both will perfectly do the job - to the corporate MS Exchange server. Then use apple mail and contacts which provides you with all of the above missing functionality in order to do the job efficiently. It comes as a handy frontend.
3. Define a set of rules describing how you enter contacts to your MS Outlook contacts database and get used to the correct and only way of searching through them. Important caveat: define the rules the same way your employer does it. Follow strictly the rules and hope they are complete and that your intuition does not try to overrule them.
4. Learn the e-mail addresses by heart and do not rely on supporting software functionality.
5. Are there more?

The TV Channel-Problem

Did you ever rearrange the list of TV channels on your TV?

The TV channels you get by cable (and in a digital world the number is getting more and more) are usually sorted in a way which does not fit your TV watching habits. It is already a good idea to sort them by country, language, and by TV station. But you will always end-up rearranging this list according to your needs.

Up to know I did not find any TV device which would provide me with a decent functionality to accomplish this job. Indeed, I ask myself what the real criteria and priorities are when companies such as Samsung, Panasonic, Sony, Loewe, … develop a new TV device.

There are not many ways you could think of in which the functionality of rearranging the channel list can be implemented. Especially using the limited control elements of a standard TV remote control.

The general way this functionality is realized in modern TV devices is that you first select a channel, second enter the position in the list where this channel should go, and third after pressing OK the selected and the current channel in preferred position will change place. This works fine as long as you want to rearrange only a small number of channels. But if you tend to rearrange the entire list you will probably end up writing the current list down on a piece of paper, then writing down your preferred list, and then figuring out a more or less intelligent and systematic strategy to transform the first into the second list by applying a sequence of  channel position changes. Every mistake in your strategy will prolongate the process. With the number of channels available now a days this is a job of several hours. It can be done. That is not the question. But, is it really user friendly? Is this the best way of providing this needed functionality? Is it what you as a customer would expect from an intelligent product?

A couple of weeks ago I got this gorgeous Samsung LED TV. A great piece of engineering. The image quality is just amazing. That is the most important thing for a TV. And I would not like to miss that. Actually this was the main sales argument for me to buy exactly this device. It has a whole lot more of great functionality. As for example direct connection to internet widgets such as Youtube, some weather channels, stock charts, news readers, … More functionality to mention is the interactive channel program guide. - But when it comes to rearrange the channel list… just the same pain as described above.

A Loewe TV bought ten years ago - the same way of arranging the channel list. A Philipps TV fifteen years old - the same. A Panasonic TV twenty years old - the same.

I did not conduct systematic research on that but I would bet that you could go through the products of the entire TV device industry and you would not find one decent implementation for this functionality.

I understand that in the development of such a versatile device such as a TV the rearrangement option of the channel list can not be in the highest position. But if I have a look back at the history of TV devices I know and I do not see any indication of slightly improvement in this context I have my doubts if I am paying for the right innovation strategy.

What would be a solution? - I think the best solution for rearrangement of the channel list would be as follows:

1) select the channel of interest

2) enter the position number above which channel to insert the channel of interest

3) the channel jumps to the entered position

4) the entire rest of the list jumps one position back

I do not know wether this is the best algorithm but it is a pretty common process available on a number of other devices. Only the TV developers seem to be resistant to change.

It is clear that this functionality for a TV device is not the most important one. But if you have to rearrange the list it is a pretty uncomfortable experience.

So, why is that not improved over so many years of continuous improvement in TV functionality?

- it is not a primarily sales argument

- when the customer notices this particular inconvenience he has already bought the TV

- it is a function which is rarely used (at least once depending on how frequently your TV signal provider changes the choice or on the sustainability of your personal habits)

- in the development process the image quality and functionality used by the customer in daily use has priority over maintenance and set up functions (there is other maintenance functionality such as firmware upgrade which hast some drawback as well in the above described product)

- the marketing discussions are probably all superficial around what the customer sees when he enters a shop and not about those technocratic aspects of channel rearrangement

- the engineering has to bargain for time in order to fix basic features since time to market is the most important aspect of product development

It is not an easy task to solve the integral problem of product development and to set the right priorities. I notice more and more that we are running towards new great functionality on the product side which is interfacing with the end user but that it is based on a limited foundation which - since in the end product you can not see it directly - is designed suboptimally and has many limitations since it has grown over time. The lessons learned are never implemented. In every project we learn how things could be done better but we do not take the time to really apply what we have learnt. - Or am I the only one to learn now for the fourth time that TV channel rearrangement has not been rethought during the last twenty years while the wrapping has gone through several evolutionary steps.