Plenty of articles have been written about those awful voice-recognition menus that many companies use for customer service. But I came across an especially bad one recently. Not only is it poor at figuring out what you want, but you have to say virtually every choice out loud. They actually removed the ability to just punch in a number for simple things like making a payment. Worse, for the areas where you can use the keypad, like entering your credit card number, there is no way to correct a mistake. Instead, it just sends you to a representative, who would probably ask you to repeat everything again. What’s more, it says “I’m sorry that you’re having trouble”, implying that the customer doesn’t know how to enter basic data.

The takeaway? When an alternate data entry method will be popular with a large set of customers (but you need to keep the other option for business or technical reasons), you should consider giving people both options. And in any event, always let users correct their mistakes without insulting them. Chances are, they’ll get it right the second time.

To the movie studios who design their DVD menus with cursor icons that look like a cloud or a star or a pony;

To the software vendors who ship CDs and DVDs in a package that takes a crystal ball and utility knife to open;

To the car companies who keep creating gauges that look totally different than the ones that drivers have been relying upon all their lives;

Are these “innovations” important enough to make up for the difficulty they cause your users, when your products become that much harder to learn and use?

I have been riding the train systems in Chicago and San Francisco quite a bit lately. While neither is perfect, and San Francisco’s probably gets a lot more positive press, Chicago does something that every transit agency should emulate: they make their announcements as loud and clear as possible. When you hear “This is an Orange Line train to downtown” or “State and Lake is next”, you can be confident that you’re on the right train and your stop is coming up next. But in San Francisco, the announcements are quite faint and hard to understand, and the train names aren’t very informative. For instance, the train to downtown San Francisco has no visual or auditory clues that it goes that way, aside from a few signs in the station. And while Chicago’s trains are certainly labeled better, many of them refer to downtown as the “Loop”, which might confuse first-time visitors.

With this in mind, I leave you with a bit of advice. If you have important instructions to convey to your users — whether by audio, video, or just plain text — make sure your messages are easy-to-understand. At the same time, try to use the terminology that customers are most likely to recognize, especially if you want to provide a good experience for those who are new to your product or service.

I recently came across the Uncle Mark Gift Guide and I liked the concept immediately. As a customer experience consultant, Mark Hurst shares his recommendations on which products are easy-to-use and actually do what they claim. It follows that these products would make excellent gifts within their category, since recipients will spend their time using and enjoying them — without losing hours on the phone with tech support.

Taking this concept one step further, I would love to see someone create an online directory of simple, well-designed products. This could serve as a resource to shoppers, as well as a reference for product managers and designers. Perhaps it could take the form of a blog or wiki, where people contribute their favorite products and an informal panel decides which ones make the grade.

Unlike more general product review websites, the products on this list need to work intuitively right out-of-the-box. I don’t want products where the user was baffled at first, spent hours on the phone with tech support, found an obscure workaround, and is reasonably happy now. In other words, if users have to decipher a huge manual or hunt for goofy workarounds, your product won’t qualify.

Admittedly, I’m not up to the task of creating this directory right now. But if someone else decides to, I’ll be happy to submit a few products for consideration 🙂

With most web-based applications, the developer makes more money if you use them more.  Whether it’s more user licenses, more projects, or more data being stored, their revenues go up when customers expand their usage of the service.  But these very same products tend to make it hard to do a rather simple thing: duplicate or clone existing items.

Say you’ve created a project that you want to duplicate for another client. Or you need to add another user login for a new staff member.  Or you’ve made a great email template that you want to customize for multiple territories. In my experience — even using some of the best commercial software apps — these tasks require you to copy and paste the info to a text document, create the new item, and then manually insert the information into the new entry.

Clearly, there’s a better way: give users a button for Clone, Duplicate, Another Like This, etc. It’s a huge time saver and reduces the chance of errors. So how do you decide when this feature would be appropriate? Easy: Think about what users do when their accounts grow and usage of your product expands. Do they add lots of similar projects, user logins, email templates, and other things that your application lets them create? If so, you should strongly consider making these repetitive tasks easier with a Clone button.

Most software products do a pretty good job of disclosing their system requirements, like how much memory and what sort of processor you need to make them work.  Even though the terms can get a little obscure, at least the company has made the effort to tell you what’s required.

My experience buying a coffeemaker made me think about system requirements on a more general basis.  While this  trusty appliance easily fits underneath my kitchen cabinet, there isn’t enough room for the lid to open.  So I have to slide it all the way out when I’m adding water or coffee.  The manufacturer obviously knows how big the lid is, so it would make sense for them to provide this valuable info along with other data on the box.

Many products outside the realm of computer software would benefit from a more thoughtful consideration of their system requirements. Things like how close they need to be to a wall outlet, how much clearance you need for the various doors and lids and levers, and what skills and interests you may need to make them work are all quite helpful. This info might be printed on the package itself, listed on an e-commerce site, or highlighted on a store display.  Whatever the form, this practice helps take some of the guesswork out of buying and increases the chance that your customers are getting what they expect.