Left: boarding details circled by ground steward, right: preprinted circles on new boarding pass.

Pointing out what matters
When you check in for a flight the ground stewards circle the gate number and the boarding time (picture on the left), just to make sure that you and the flight crew are on the same page with regard to the take off time and place. Boarding passes are so poorly designed that it is hard to look up your boarding time, even if you're looking for it. On a recent flight I came across a new boarding pass design (right picture) on which the ground steward's circles were preprinted. The whole pass has a meticulous layout, and suddenly there are these two intentionally shaky red 'markings' that indicate your boarding time and gate.

Imitating a fix
It's good to see the airline has picked up on the fact that boarding time and gate are actually the most important pieces of information on the whole piece of paper, but simply adding the sketchy red circles to the ticket seems a somewhat strange approach. Why not design a boarding pass that points out the boarding time and gate more clearly from the start? On the other hand: whatever gets the job done. And the red circles definitely stand out, and the users are already familiar with their meaning. But what will the ground stewards do now? Add another circle to the pass, just to make sure that you really got the time and place right? The new design just might have robbed the ground stewards of an important way of bringing something to your attention.

New seat design
And then a side note on the subject of flying that should delight everyone who has every flown economy: new seat design provides a place to rest your head, and more leg-space.

(Left picture: the cranky flier, right picture: flyingismylife)

On his good experience blog Mark Hurst reflects on a good read in the New York Times about mobile phone development and design becoming more user-centered (partly as a result of the advent of the iPhone).

“Our job is to be behaviorists and psychologists,” said Ehtisham Rabbani, LG’s vice president for product strategy and marketing. “We constantly have to be reminding ourselves that we tend to be geek types and our customers are not.”

At least that's one more person that has seen the designer-user gap. As a contrast to the iPhone Hurst mentions the Motorola Razr, that was hugely popular for a while and then seemed to vanish of the face of the earth. According to Hurst the Razr that was a fashion statement, and not a usable device. And, as he points out:

Fashion is a difficult, volatile business to be in. In contrast, a great user experience is a competitive advantage, and in the tech industry that means creating tools that people can delight in using, not just flashing like a piece of jewelry.

The NY times piece mentions that at LG participants with test-phones can call a toll-free number anytime to "share their emotions about the phone they are testing. And sometimes they are asked to draw pictures that represent their mood when they hold the phone."

Sounds to me as if someone is taking the Dr.Phil approach to user-centered product design. It's not magic, it's not emotions, it's still just about finding out how to improve the product. So a customer let's you know what mood he is in, and then what? What you really want to know is how you pissed them off, and how you can change your design to improve that. But I can imagine that LG wants to prevent another NYT headline like LG Chocolate can be a sticky mess. When it comes to being a fashion statement instead of usable, the LG Cholocate indeed came very close to the Razr.

[via UnpressableButtons]

The frustrations of installing ADSL
Many of KPN Telecom's customers ran into trouble when trying to connect and setup the modem for a product called 'InternetPlusBellen' (ADSL Internet and voice over IP). One of the company's previous strategies was to offer consumers the option to have the adsl connection installed by a professional. However, it seems a bit strange to offer your customer a product, and then have them paying to get it installed, because it is so complicated.

Making improvements where you can
A reason for KPN to try and improve the setup experience. However, the company does not develop the modems, splitters, etc; these products are usually purchased 'as is'. That is why the company setup a project to improve the do-it-yourself installation process of ADSL by changing what it could change: the manual, the packaging and the cables. The new kit features a quick reference card that folds out when you open the box, and all cables have been given color indications, which are referred to on the card. There is also an extended handbook and an installation CD in the package.

Bottom line: 30% fewer help-desk calls
The cooperation between KPN product house, design office Flex, human-centered design consultants P5, and the 2D-design firm Do Company seems to have paid off. In a test comparing the redesign to its predecessor, the customer group owning the “new” kit makes 30% less calls and experiences 30% less problems than customers owning the “old” kit. Why KPN cares so much? Because of the cost reduction. Every call to the help-desk costs them money. In the press release that Flex issued (hidden somewhere on their non-linkable flash-based website), it is mentioned that the savings for KPN because of this kit might run into the millions of euros. How is that for an ROI on usability?

Customers complimenting new design
The fact that KPN beliefs in this setup speaks from the fact that the installation kits of nearly all KPN brands are currently being reworked, based on this design. In addition the kit got a Red Dot Award, but what struck me most is that according to the press release, customers are still complimenting KPN on the new kit. How often have you complemented any company on an installation? The old non-usability mantra "We'll fix that in the manual" is put in a whole new perspective if the 'manual' looks as good as this.

Similar: Microsoft ergonomic keyboard
The project bears some resemblance to the treatment Microsoft gave its ergonomic keyboard, to prevent people from trying to use it without installing the drivers first. Although, I must admit, they were fixing a problem they caused themselves. KPN is making up for what their hardware suppliers did not deliver.

Photo courtesy SizeChina.

Western products hurt asian people, physically
Complaints from Japanese snowboarders that a US-designed helmet gave them a splitting headache, and that they would thus never buy it triggered Roger Ball, former designer and now assistant Professor at Hong Kong PolyU, to setup the SizeChina project: the world’s first digital database of Chinese head and face shapes. Asian heads are shaped differently than 'western' heads, but nonetheless most products are based on anthropometric (measurements of the human body) data of these western heads. Hence the Japanese snowboarders' splitting headache. So Ball set out to measure more than 2000 Chinese heads in 6 different regions in China, driving bulky 3D scanning equipment throughout the country. Ball is not using a ruler to measure the Chinese. He uses state-of-the-art 3D scanning equipment.

Chinese heads are different
And now the first results are in. The data will be made (commercially) available through the SizeChina database and indeed the whole exercise proved worthwhile:

The first prototype Size China head form, constructed from scanned data, revealed a dramatic difference between Chinese and Western head and face shapes: Western heads are generally more oval and appear to have had the corners “filled out.”

Read the full story in MetropolisMag.

Usability and anthropometrics
And why should we care about anthropomotrics? For web- and software, physical ergonomics hardly play a role, because for human-computer interaction most of the time the physical interaction components are the same (usually a mouse and a keyboard). But consumer product usability means you're talking about products that have different physical controls every time, and that should still deliver an efficient, effective and satisfactory human-product interaction. Which includes a comfortable, efficient and satisfactory interaction in the physical sense. So a good anthropometric database, such as Johan Molenbroek - who is also a consultant on the SizeChina project - helped develop in the Netherlands (Dined) is essential for consumer product usability. In every part of the world, and now also in China.

At home we used to have a thermometer that would consist of a strip of temperature-sensitive plastic that you would hold against your forehead. Inaccurate as hell, but the idea was cool enough. Now this concept has made its way to the roads (hopefully in a little more reliable version). A new temperature-sensitive road paint turns pink if the temperature drops, and can thus warn drivers about dangerous conditions.
According to infosthetics:

the varnish is made of a polymer containing a thermochromic pigment. the same type of coating is already used to make bath thermometers & frozen food packaging that responds to temperature change. however, it is the first time such a coating has been used to monitor road temperatures.

Full article: newscientist.com.

4+ remotes per household
There are 66 million remote controls in The Netherlands. With 16 million inhabitants, that's about 4 remotes per country. This according to a pan-European study by TNS-NIPO for Philips among two-thousand people, on which Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant reports (in Dutch only). It turns out that 75% of all Dutch people own more than four remote controls. Almost a third of the households has more than six of these devices.

Gender differences
The results of the study also counters the commonly held belief that men are in charge of the remote. Especially in the Mediterranean countries it seems to be mostly women who take control. The further north you get, the less difference there seems to be in remote control-control inequality.

Is this useful information?
Though fascinating, studies like these always make me wonder: what do the results really tell you. Families own more than 6 remotes. Interesting. How many of them do they really use? And how often? And what annoys them most? And would they be willing to invest to get rid of four of six remotes? Now that would be a couple of interesting answers... However, the aim of the study might have been more in the realm of generating free publicity for a new remote control. Don't be surprised if we see a new Philips universal remote control soon...

Misunderstanding
Sometimes it's hard to figure out why the engineer on your design team doesn't understand why this one change would make a much better UI. But sometimes it's even harder to understand why users don't understand the UI you designed. I mean, it's completely logical. Apart from the fact that you might have much more experience with products like this than your user group, you are always an expert on the product you designed, simply because you designed it. No matter how hard you try to become 'blank' again, you never will.

The designer-user gap
This is what Jakob Nielsen (or his ghostwriter) in his Alertbox column is calls the designer-user gap. Nielsen identifies three levels of designer-user gaps:
- Level 1: The Designer Is the User (he completely understands how the product works, and so do the users)
- Level 2: The Designer Understands the Product (and the designer is in the dangerous position of knowing more than the user group)
- Level 3: Designing for a Foreign Domain (where the designer has the problem that he knows much less than the user group)
The last level has the biggest designer-user gap, and, according to the article:

The wider the gap between your situation and the users, their tasks, and their context, the more you need a systematic usability process to inform and adjust your design.

Hard-to-reach user groups
A fellow PhD candidate of mine here at IDE in Delft, Helma van Rijn, is studying how to design for 'hard to reach user groups'. In her graduation project she designed LINKX, a language learning tool for autistic toddlers (see movie, above). Here the designer-user gap is very big; it's hard for a non-autistic grown-up to imagine how autistic toddlers look at the world. To make things worse, you can't ask them to explain you. The same goes for seniors with dementia, another hard-to-reach user group that Helma worked with. For them she designed a group game that triggers memories, called the Klessebessers (chit-chatters). Watch the movies, and see for yourself whether Helma bridged the designer-user gap.

Erik Burke sums it up nicely in this cartoon at www.stuffthathappens.com.

Click image to go to Erik's website and see the final panel.

Make money and make people happy at the same time: European Business Conference on Inclusive Design 2008.

Would you like to know how inclusive design can help you create new products and services? How design methods can take you closer to the customer and give you an innovative edge?

Includes a lecture by Jarmo Lehtonen, Design Research Manager, Design for All at Nokia and a 24 hour design challenge, which is on of the few  really interesting conference elements at design conferences I have seen in the past years.

(thanks to Johan for the tip)

What?
A proposal for a guide that helps consumer to buy a usable product. It was originally published in the Dutch Tijdschrift voor Ergonomie (Volume 33, Issue 1, February 2008). I've translated it in English, and added product examples and pictures that had to be cut from the final publication. The article (English version) can be found on my publications page, or to open the pdf-document directly, click here.

Why?
Somehow I always end up at people’s DVD-player. “Now this is what I call a stupid product. Can you figure it out? Here, take a look at this!” Or someone wants to buy a new mobile phone and will get the question what the user-friendliest model is. I may be working on a PhD on consumer product usability, but for one I don’t know the whole product portfolio of Nokia, SonyEricsson and Motorola by heart, and it is simply very hard to determine which phone would be best for someone. It really all depends. What are you good at, what do you want to do with it? Consumers should be able to assess for themselves which product works best for them. However, usability is not like styling, brand or price: it’s hard to experience a product’s usability without using it. Therefore: this step-by-step guide to enable consumers to purchase their your very own usable product.

Who is it meant for?
The guide itself is embedded in the paper, aimed at consumers, and written in plain language. I have added an introduction and short discussion section for product development professionals.

Summary
And the eight steps? In short, it comes down to this:
1) Functionality: What will you (really) do with the product?
2) Interaction: What is usability to you?
3) Determine the context of use
4) Collecting opinions – the Internet and friends
5) Support and manuals
6) In stores: try it out
7) Sales ‘advice’: always add a pinch of salt
8) Do-it-yourself usability evaluation