We often talk about how usability can make or break system adoption. And claim that we understand that it’s the experience that a system delivers which is the driving force behind whether the benefits it promises to deliver are actually realized.
But what exactly does that mean?
It’s not a checklist of things and the landscape is changing as quickly as we find the next thing. Inspiration in solving the big question can come from a variety of sources and often, the best ideas come as much from reviewing poor examples, as they do from great ones …
At the weekend we were in a store – a well known one where 95% of the stock isn’t on the shop floor and you get to ‘borrow’ a miniature pen and order your item with a slip of paper.
So we’re looking for a Christmas Tree, as you do on Dec 15th. Clearly we’re in a hurry and struggling as we’re both flicking frantically through laminated bits of catalogue, looking every inch the needle-in-haystack hunters.
Along comes a sales assistant who asks “Can I help you find what you’re looking for?”
And in his hand is ……. drum roll please …….. an iPad!
“First day I’ve used this,” he says happily proud of his bit of kit, “best not drop it.”
And on his iPad he has ………….. the internet open, on the webpage for the store.
So he types into the search box ‘Christmas tree’ and sure enough off it goes in search of Christmas trees … time passes … clearly he’s using the same 3G connection we could have on our iPhones and the store evidently doesn’t have dedicated connection.
Eventually the site comes back to say that yes, they do indeed sell Christmas Trees – he shows us a few on the iPad and we pick one. He then ‘orders’ one to see if there are any in stock in the UK (after much fiddling around with quantities and choosing between home delivery or in-store purchase).
Eventually, once his iPad has some connection and he’s established that they have one in the UK, he then picks up a miniature pen and writes the code of the tree on a slip of paper.
“You’ll need this to check if there’s one in stock here” he pro-claims.
As he then battles to try and rest his precious shiny iPad on the only space (a laminated, unstable catalogue) so he can write down the code, my husband has found the tree in a catalogue and is already using the customer stock check thingy with the big buttons.
“There are 7 in stock – ones on the shop floor,” my husband announces.
And sure enough – there in the corner of the shop – under a sign that read ‘Christmas Trees’ boxed up and ready to go – was a 6ft tall spruce specimen which had been waiting patiently for us all along while the sales guy was trying to catch up – still obliviously punching the numbers into a customer stock checker, whilst trying to hang on to his iPad and miniature pen.
So what lessons do we have here?
When we talk about a mobile offering we’re not talking about our users just doing the same things they do now but on a fancy piece of kit. We’re not talking about something which takes longer to do than pen and paper. We’re not talking about something that isn’t designed in every inch and detail to meet the process it’s adopted into. We’re not talking about something that forces you to complete seemingly unnecessary tasks in order to do what you want to, and we’re certainly not looking for you to still have to carry around slips of paper and miniature pens to fill in the gaps that mobile can’t quite fill.
The Sales assistant didn’t need an iPad connected to a website – he needed a bit of kit linked live to the stockroom of the store he was in, which was specifically designed so that he could beat the customer system.
One which had a homepage constantly updating itself to say what was happening with the stock levels of this years best Xmas sellers (in that area), or what was happening with the stock of the items sold most that day (in that store and the nearest ones) or offering a multitude of alternatives for the things which were out of stock.
One which at the touch of an optimally sized button could text a customer the stock codes they need or a QR-Code image which they could use to buy it later or even better they could just complete the order for them and text them their order number … etc etc etc.
He needed something intuitive to use and which knew the tasks he was likely to try and perform and subsequently live up to his role as an, ‘Assistant’. Not some flimsy half hearted attempt at being ‘mobile’ and flashy.
Or failing that he could have used some sense –we don’t always need to rely on technology, often we just need to look at what is right in front of us all along.
Thoughts on all things user experience 