

A Tale of Two Users, or How Design is Tough - gsaines
http://georgesaines.com/2010/09/14/a-tale-of-two-users-or-how-design-is-tough/

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weego
Are UX discussions now really so played out that this little anecdote is
considered insightful?

To summarise for comment readers "some people have a different understanding
of complexity and how something you see as trivial might be confusing to
others".

~~~
mortaise
I think so. For the non UX crowd or those starting out. You have to start
understand the issues at hand somehow.

Anecdotes are stories. Stories are great ways to communicate complex issues in
an easy to digest manner.

It may not be ground breaking insightful; but still relevant.

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CaptainZapp
Reminds me of the elevator button example:

You're in the fourth floor, the elevator is on the fifth floor (indicated by a
display above the door) and you want to go up.

Do you press the _up_ , or _down_ button?

At first this seems obvious, since you want to go up, but it's only obvious
because you know how elevator interfaces work.

Another valid way to interpret the elevator interface is to press the down
button, since you're in the fourth floor and want it to come down to you.

Yep, interface design is hard.

~~~
derefr
You press the single button on the panel, hypothetically
labelled—hypothetically because a label is completely unnecessary when there's
only one—"come to me." A lot of what makes interface design "hard" is that our
minds are filled with cached solutions to no-longer-valid problems (like the
problem of directing around a purely-hydraulic lift that cannot indicate its
relative position to you.) The elevator now has a computer in it; it knows
which direction it needs to go to come toward you, and you now know if it's
coming from the "wrong" direction in order to pick an alternate lift out of a
bank.

Some of these things are so codified that people would react badly if we took
them away, though. For example, JRPGs no longer _need_ to display numeric
damage tallies—but it persists because that's what makes a JRPG a JRPG.

~~~
jasonkester
But that's wouldn't solve the problem that elevator buttons are designed to
solve.

You have to tell it "I'm going up" so that it doesn't stop downward-bound
elevators on your floor and slow the system. Your single-button interface
would make things considerably worse.

~~~
derefr
That assumes, though, that there is more than one elevator. There is already
well-known and battle-tested solution for that case: put a destination-floor-
number panel outside the elevator bank (not connected to any single elevator,
but rather offset), with the current floor's button removed. To remove the
possibility of thinking that the panel of buttons has anything to do with the
numbers the elevators display, remove the external displays from all the
elevators. When you press the button, the first elevator available (and going
in the right direction) opens at your floor, already set to go to your
destination floor. (If you really insist, you can pulse the backlight of the
activated destination floor button as the elevator nears, in a sort of marco-
polo way; I've seen a very upscale hotel do just this.)

Now, what I was referring to in my previous post was a _single-elevator_
scenario (which is most elevators outside of hotels and apartment buildings.)
In the case of a single elevator, there's really no difference between the
elevator either:

1\. passing you, turning around, arriving at your floor, picking you up, and
heading to your destination floor; or

2\. opening at your floor, taking you along with whomever else is inside to
their destination floors, then turning around and heading for your destination
floor.

Either way, you spend the same amount of time waiting (arbitrarily either
inside or outside of the elevator), and the elevator opens the same number of
times. When there is one elevator, all that really matters is getting inside
it.

~~~
bluesnowmonkey
Capacity is often a bottleneck in large buildings. The elevator might be full
as it passes going the wrong way, so getting in isn't even an option. Also,
more people might show up on your floor by the time the elevator passes going
the right way, necessitating another stop.

~~~
derefr
Firstly, if capacity is a problem, there really shouldn't just be a single
elevator serving this supposedly "large" building. But since a lot of places
can't afford all the elevators they need... you know how a full bus will just
ignore everyone at a bus stop, and only stop when someone wants off? Elevators
know when they're full.

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bengtan
Case in point:

I had a friend's mum who asked me once (in reference to vertical scrolling on
ie. browsers and Microsoft Word):

Why do you press down to make the page go up?

('down' is the down cursor button)

------
untamedmedley
Isn't this more an example of when it's best to let a customer go?

Is the cost associated with meeting this small percentage of customer's needs
worth actually meeting them?

~~~
zachware
Depends. Not with mission critical processes like checkout IMHO. What this
piece points to is a flaw in design processes. As designers and developers we
see things through a logical lens of our own making.

What we don't realize is that the real world and other factors influence our
target users. It's the mark of a good designer when he/she pushes user testing
to understand what people will do with what we build.

In this specific case, _we_ all know you use the magnetic pin but not everyone
does. It's hard to believe but the sometimes don't.

~~~
untamedmedley
I agree that if your site metrics show large numbers of people set to buy but
abandoning their purchase because the checkout process is confusing, then you
should work to make it more user friendly.

But what I'm saying is every designer should be asking 1. How many people are
having this unique difficulty and 2. Is it worth the time and COST to fix it?
Moreover, will adding the information/steps to needed to clarify the process
bore/put off the majority of customers who already know how to use this (for
example, a tutorial that either adds an additional step or doesn't allow users
to bypass it)?

A good designer should be able to plan for contingencies, but a good
businessperson should be able to draw the line between pleasing a customer and
watching their bottom line.

