On the verge of 2009 I ran into this review of the Blaupunkt TravelPilot 700 in De Volkskrant (Dutch newspaper). I've translated part of it, because it very clearly illustrates that there can be a tremendous difference between what a product description promises and how that works out in reality. In the first part of the review the author points out all the features that make the Blaupunkt TravelPilot 700 utterly remarkable, and in the second part he burns those features down to the ground, one by one. Especially the last two sentences are deadly. However, Blaupunkt's promising product description did cause a stir on the gadet blogs. Mission accomplished?

A real TomTom-killer. On the drawing board, that is.

Blaupunkt did it: the German electronics manufacturer made a TomTom-killer. The TravelPilot 700 has everything a driver can ever wish for. Built-in TV-tuner, so you can watch high definition television if you are not driving. Wireless internet connection plus built-in mail- and browser-software. It can even read Word and Excel documents. It has Bluetooth, plays DivX-movies, and of course MP3s, and it has a large touch-screen. But the best feature of the TravelPilot 700 is the built-in camera. It can read traffic signs with speed limitations, just like the new BMW 7-series or the Opel Insignia. […] The TravelPilot has one more trick up its sleeve. The built-in camera can show the road, just like the driver sees it. […] Because the device projects the directional arrows over it, the driver sees much clearer what exit to take. […]

A wonderful device. On the drawing board, that is. Because in practice there are quite a few things wrong with the TravelPilot700. For instance, during a 250 kilometer trip the built-in camera missed nearly all speed limitations at roadwork. In other cases it missed the end of a speed limit. The number of mistakes was so big that you can’t trust it blindly. Which makes the whole feature essentially useless. […]

There’s more. The driver is addressed by a Dutch and a Flemish girl, who regularly utter parts of sentences simultaneously, like the nephews of Donald Duck. […] Sloppy and potentially annoying. And then there’s some nickel and dime stuff: the holder with the suction cup that is used to attach the device to the window is hard to set properly. The arrows are only projected properly on-screen if the camera is aimed just the right way: you have to do that over and over again because of that clumsy suction cup. In addition the screen can’t be directed towards the driver, because the camera is then pointed at the roadside.

We did not succeed at setting up a WIFI connection, not even on an unsecured router. The TV-tuner did not receive any signal in the Amsterdam region. You can’t see whether the battery is charged if the device is switched off and charging. Charging via the USB cable is not possible.

The list of shortcomings is endless. And with that the 600 Euro that the device costs suddenly becomes a whole lot of money. It’s probably best to wait for the TravelPilot 700.1. Or you buy a TomTom.

Author: Bard van de Weijer - De Volkskrant, December 18 2008

Let's say that simplicity or usability is something worth striving for. But when looking at the scene above from the movie Idiocracy you realize there's something to be said against making things too simplistic; it would be nice if humans would remain thinking beings.

[Thanks for the tip Remko]

Whoever has ever tried to replace a toner cartridge can testify of the dangers of toner powder. If you don't pay attention for just one second, you're polluting the whole machine with toner, guaranteeing smudges for the next 2000 prints or so. Not to mention the amount of grayish powder you might apply to yourself. Obviously, toner is supposed to remain inside the cartridge, but somehow the clever powder has developed the ability to escape its maximum security prison.

Now Océ, developer of professional printers and copiers, has developed a new printing technology called CrystalPoint. Instead of using traditional powdery toner, this system melts little plastic-like balls (toner pearls) into an emulsion that can be propelled onto the paper. Apart from being a more environmentally friendly solution and the ability to print on uncoated paper, my attention was drawn by a number of advantages for usage. Because the TonerPearls are solid when you put them into the machine, there is no danger of polluting the whole device or yourself with toner and an additional advantage is that because of transparent cartridges you can easily see when you need to replace a cartridge, without the use of complex sensory systems.

More information about CrystalPoint and TonerPearls
> Desktop Engineering: Océ Transforms Wide-Format Printing Industry
> Movie on YouTube explaining CrystalPoint technology

The Apple store on Fifth Avenue, New York (Photo: Gizmodo)

If you ask them, almost every 'respondent' will tell you: of course they want easy to use products. But once they are in the store or on the web, other purchase considerations come into play. In The Roots of Apple's Retail Stores Lowendmac elaborates on the considerations that were the drivers behind Apple's decision to setup its own retail stores: consumers had a hard time distinguishing the expensive Macs from less expensive PCs, retail staff would not explain the difference properly (according to Apple), and in stores consumers could not experience the difference themselves. The rest is history.

See Also
Other uselog posts on usability and retail:
> Shop demos: don't try me, just buy me
> Quality label for universal design
> Muji: 'No Brand, Just Good Product'

Two interesting items on the subject of managing design and/or usability and/or the user experience. A subject that is of particular interest to me, as it is what my PhD research within the Design for Usability research project focuses on.

Influencing strategy by design
This series of workshops, facilitated by Luke Wroblewski (of the Functioning Form blog) and Tom Chi, produced some interesting, and recognizable results. The workshops focused on 'design' influencing strategy, but I think that for most of the conclusions you can safely replace 'design' by 'usability engineering'. Really, if you're working in usability practice you're going to find the stuff below (a few of their results) uncomfortably familiar:

• My organization often prioritizes monetization and revenue over user experience. Our focus is on sales not customers.
  
• The business units and product managers in my organization are responsible for most product decisions -not the design team
  
• Poor User Experience is not a gating factor for launching products
  
• Information exchange is difficult because we have distributed teams
  
• My organization outsources a lot of our design efforts
  
• In my organization, the emphasis is on time to market

Managing Experience
So the question now is... how to deal with that situation. Maybe some answers can be found at the Managing Experience (MX) conference, organized by Adaptive Path, on the subject of (you guessed it) managing the user experience. The line-up up to now seems inspiring, with speakers such as Khoi Vinh (Design Director for NYTimes.com), Bruce Temkin (analyst at Forrester Research), Margret Schmidt (VP user experience design & research at TiVo), Margaret Gould Stewart (manager user experience at Google). It takes place on March 1-3, 2009 in San Francisco.

An overview of 'ergonomic' office chairs by Unplggd. The biggest common denominator of these chairs seems to be the price level, which are about as high as the back support they offer. Wired especially likes the new Herman Miller Embody chair.

Ergonomics versus initial comfort
But are they really ergonomic or just comfortable? A while ago I was at an ergonomics conference where an office furniture supplier was demonstrating its newest ergonomic office chair. The company had noticed that a lot of people did buy an ergonomic chair, but then failed to make the right settings on them. A colleague of mine, specialized in physical ergonomics once remarked: "If a product can be adjusted by users, it often ends up being adjusted the wrong way." To overcome this problem, the company had developed a software program to teach you the right settings. You entered your height, weight, etc, and it showed you the best settings for your chair and how to make them (these chairs usually have more levers than the cockpit of a small airplane). What happened was this: people made the settings, sat down, were surprised about how it felt - which was different than what they were used to - got up and uttered: "This feels weird, its not ergonomic at all." So here the company ran into a problem: what's good for you in the long run may feel weird at first. Even if people are looking for an 'ergonomic' chair, they actually might be assessing them by initial comfort instead of the long term ergonomic qualities.

[Illustration: Unplggd]

UPDATE
Core77 decided not to write a review on the Embody chair based on first impressions, but 'lived' with it for a month and then gave their opinion. How's that for initial comfort versus long-term ergonomics...

Some things are notoriously clumsy. Like where to put your tea-bag after you've used it. On the side of your saucer? In one of these cute separate little bowls? On the table? Finally there's a solution of which the elegance enchants me - even though I'm mostly a coffee drinker: the tea-bag coffin, by Jonas Trampedach, studying at the Royal College of Art. Doesn't seem to be in production yet. Anyone interested?

[via swissmiss]