Thursday, March 20, 2008

Putting up with Bad Interfaces

A thought I want to jot down and elaborate on in future posts.

Why do people have such low tolerance for bad usability in the IVR but are (or have been) able to endure without a peep of complaint the DOS and UNIX prompt? I don't ever remember anyone saying, "stupid computer! Why can't you understand me when I type 'check disk' instead of stubbornly insisting on 'chkdsk'. " Instead, people usually curse their own "stupidity" and "carelessness," and exclaim how they are just bad with computers and how their 10 year old child was far better than them, and all that.

So, why is that?

One reason, I guess, is the perception that humans have that whatever a human can do, the brainy machine should be able to do faster and better. A human can understand speech and engage in conversations with almost no effort (or so we think), and if a computer can't do it, then clearly there is something wrong with that computer (or, in this case, the IVR technology).

The perception is exacerbated by the illusion well designed VUIs give of sounding and behaving like a human. Which results in a raising of intelligence expectations and a lowering of tolerance for mistakes.

Sometimes I wonder if a VUI that was designed like a DOS command would result in people complaining less than otherwise! Would a VUI that sounded like a robot (but was perfectly intelligible), that tolerated no variations, that sounded like the almighty Computer itself speaking, without a hint of negotiating, who was in complete and unshakable control, that didn't fret or apologize when it made a mistake, that accused the user of making errors when things failed, that responded with things like, "Your response is not recognized as an internal or external command" -- would such a VUI have the effect of having people blame themselves when things didn't work? An experiment worth conducting....

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