Oh this is good ...

So I went to down load some information on a trade show ... and I found this on the web site. Ummm ... where do I click do get my packet? You sent me some nice login information, but I see no login screen or place to click to "login" ...




Oh ... you want me to click on the signs!

I really am at a loss on this one. I guess the idea is that this is a trade show company, so here you are immersed in the trade show experience ... That might work for Second Life, but on an informational, B2B web page, it is just horrible.

Of course, charging $200 for an internet connection, plus a 24% service fee, plus 13.25% sales tax ... that's not so great either.

You really think this is helpful?

The ubiquitous card reader ... this particular one is located at the self check out lane of the Meijer near my house. Now, I wont dwell on the joy of self checkout; I just want to look at this device.

The concept is simple enough, swipe your card, put in your pin if needed maybe sign and go ...
There are even two lovely buttons ... one is big, red, has a "x" on it, and has "no" written on the pad below it, the other is big, green, has the "return" symbol on it, and has "yes" written on the pad below it. Perfect! That will be so simple ...

Yeah right ... Lets look closer



Oh ... you have to use these tiny little function keys! Why? No one knows ... the poor worker laughs at me when I ask him. He says that this is one of his biggest problems ... people can't use this to pay!

I guess it is possible that someone is worried that people need the yes/no clues to know what to do, but they are so small and conflict with the other visual cues ... not good.

Just use the nice buttons that you put on the machine to begin with!

A really really confused map

Wow ... so with some recent trips to our New Jersey office I was had the opportunity to see this little treat a few times. I wonder, how did this happen? A committee? One lost soul? It wanted to be good, but go lost along the way.

This is found all over the airport; I snapped it on the train out to the rentals area. I guess we can start with the good.
Ok ... three terminals, all different colors ... makes sense; rental car parking in green and purple, sure a little strange to use two colors here but ok ... the "regular" parking is in teal ...

They use different symbols for the terminals and the "other" trian stops; that's fine calls attention to it ... so far not bad.

But then, the details ...
Where to start ... Ok the terminal lists have the symbols sure, but the yellow boarder? What does that have to do with the map!?!? and what do you think people see first? Then, there are two different colors for rental cars used on the map, but here we don't either of them here, and, in fact, use the same green as terminal C color... oh the confusion, but why ... it could be so simple.

Here is a 30 second idea on some changes ...
Make the terminal colors match ... use the parking garage colors, and change the green ... I'd also think of changing that teal ... but I think it is just my photo that is making the blues look closer than they are. Just take a second a think people ... it's not that hard to get it a lot closer!

It does what?

So I was luck enough to get a ride to the airport in a nice new BMW 700 ... What does this blue knob do?

Well it clearly is a temperature control ... Of course, it's not clear how it might control the temperature. A blue / red line would resemble most that you have seen in a car some where. All blue? What is that? It's a broken line, does that mean anything?

This is quite the confusing little control.

Ohhhhh yummy

I'm sure that you all have seen this by now ... but the iPhone looks like exactly what I am looking for ... I can't wait until next week.

Maybe we need a new plan

Today's entry comes from my recent experience with my new baby ... specifically, the monitoring and logging equipment in the delivery room.

We delivered at Rush and it was great. I have no complaint with the facility or nurses ... but ... they had just switched to a "new system" and it could use a little HCI love.

To start, there is one terminal in the room attached to a 17 inch-ish LCD. It is happily displaying a mosaic of several (from 5 to 12 at various times) different patient monitor graphs. This seems ok, as you can click on the one you really want to see and it expands to fill the screen. Then after some time, to returns back to the mosaic ... All well and good if this were a nurses station ... but in the room ...

As the baby was coming, the doctor wanted to see the monitor graph full screen (as he was several feet away) to help getting the pushing lined up with the contractions, but it kept going back to the mosaic ... so I had to keep enlarging it ...
For extra bonus, the "new system" requires that the nurses record all the "chart" information electronically ... again, good plan ... but here there was only one terminal, so the while the doctor wants to be looking at the monitor, and the nurse needs to record some information ... you have a problem ...

Of course none of this was life threatening, or dangerous in anyway, but why not add a second display that was only the monitor for this room? It's a labor and delivery room ... the monitor will almost always be used. Then it can be displayed while the other monitor is busy being used for other things ...

Some quick research led me here Epic Systems. This is "new system" that is being used ... a look around the web site leads me to believe that UCD is not spoken here ... All of there consulting services center on processes and implementation. I like this quote from the Optimisation service (emphasis mine...):

We consult with your frontline users to answer their questions, address their difficulties, fine-tune their daily workflows, and reassess their training needs.

"We are happy to tell the users what they are doing wrong" ... It all sounds rather stodgy. Well ... these things take time ...

Questions, questions, more and more questions

I had the lovely encounter with this survey at work. It was so bad on so many levels ... So lets take a look ...

First ... Give me all you personal information. That's a way to build trust; even better that your boss might see this.












This first question is far and away my favorite ... 6 levels of supervisor, what on earth is this going to tell anyone? Is there going to be a big qualitative difference between the CEO and the general manager? Oh, and the rest of you, you are all just other.



















Now we are still collecting all kinds of information on you, so please look at which of these 18 categories do you fit in? Never mind that several of them do not fit with our organisation structure ...



















Now all is not lost, they show signs that they understand that I (and others) have no interaction with this organisation and have no idea what they really do.
















So now we begin the real questions ... 3 positives, 3 negatives, and neutral ... of course we all should remember that the difference between "Extremely low" and "Very low" is exactly the same as yours. Then they had no place for a N/A, not for me, I have no idea. I'm very confident that if anyone did respond, like me, the data is going to be useless.



















And just for more fun this goes on and on for about 15 pages ... here is another. Let's look at the first question ... "Contribute to the early stages ..." Now I have no idea if they make any contribution what so ever. Our development process seems to only involve R&D and no other groups, so I can imagine that they don't ... but how do I respond!?!?



















So after all of this, what is the best way to approach this group and say "Your survey sucked and the data will be meaningless ... please let me help you next time"