An excerpt from an article about the limitations of transistor technology:
Mr Rattner says that when the first 22 nm silicon chips appear - just two chip generations out - it will prompt a generation of single-system chips that make it easier to interact with technology.
“We are right at the start of the information age. We think we are so sophisticated with our hand-held devices and internet access. But we have asked an enormous amount from users to tolerate - why is it that my mother-in-law calls me up and says ‘I’ve got this error 22 message’?
“How do we soften those interfaces and make them more human? That’s a very important next step. We are in that era of technology where we start to move away from machine imposed limitations.
We seem to have so much innovation in technology, a reasonable amount in business model (eg Google Adwords is an innovative business model) and so little in usability.
I had a play with an iPhone the other day. I went in skeptical, but came away impressed. Feature wise, it’s no better than other products, but the usability is just staggering.
My Motorola phone can play MP3s, take photos and videos, etc. Yet, it only lets me store about 30 SMS messages! I’m sure some engineer from Motorola would say, “ahhh, but there’s a good reason for that” and give some very good rant about standards/technical architecture/etc. The iPhone shows all your SMSs - in a threaded conversation window! So, Motorola (and Nokia, etc), you keep your good reasons, and I’ll seriously think about buying an iPhone. I’m not a fan of Apple as a company, but with their continued UI innovations I’ll probably end up as a customer anyway.
A project I’m working on is an overhaul of a large website, including all aspects - technology, content, usability, design, process, etc. I’m test things as simple as the words used to describe things and finding dramatic changes in usability. The section called “IT and Communications”? Uhhh, how about “Computers and Phones”? This isn’t just my opinion, I have hard data that shows these subtle changes make significant productivity differences.
A lot of techies say “oh, I am user centric! I always do what I think is for the user”. This is not what’s best for the user. You are probably the single worst person to decide, as you are close to the project and an atypical user. Intuitive designs are almost never intuitive to those making them.
I once had a chat over coffee with Gerry McGovern and spoke to him about usability challenges on a site I had. I said “hey, about some surveys? Some sophisticated web analytics analysis? Rate this page function?” etc. Gerry say there and nodded slowly, thought for a second, and in his soft Irish accent said “why don’t you ask them?”
It seems pithy and not very practical, but think about it for a while. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I see truth in it.
Please, no more Error 22 messages either, ok?