First, Do No Harm

As mentioned, we've been moving into a new office. I have been tasked with a lot of the acquisition of structural bits, like walls and desks, and last week had to rent a U-Haul truck to get the second load of large stuff moved.

The rental process was excessively slow and tedious. Among my favorites are two phone numbers required. I guess the designers were thinking home and work, but these days it's all one-number due to mobiles, so the guys at the counter even just say "a friend or family member maybe?" The other thing they ask repeatedly is if they can tack on any extra features. Not just insurance and other soft features, but more hardware, like two wheelers and blankets.

I knew what we were moving, and had all my own hardware, but for the truck, so repeatedly turned them down. Yet, when I get to the truck, this is what I have:

See full-size image

On the right side, bolted to the wall, is a two-wheeler and a bag of blankets. It's in the minibar style, where they only way to remove them is to break the seal, and that incurs a charge.

I am sure this is useful for some people, maybe even many, but I found it horrifyingly annoying. I rented a rectangle with wheels, and the metal thing intruding into that space was very inconvenient.

When I tell people what I do, they tend to not get the difference between the various parts of the industry, and complain about whatever part of their mobile service is frustrating them today. Over the years, I have hundreds of anecdotal cases. I haven't written them down and analyzed, but my impression is certainly that a key frustration is... frustration with the device or service.

Those calls for "why can't it just be a phone" have morphed into "why can't it just be a phone with text and photos" because users do want advanced features. They just want them in a simple, usable way, without any additional clutter.

I am sure the U-Haul sales and marketing departments have lots of good reasons for putting spare equipment into every truck. I am sure they have solid figures on the percentage who use the product, and even a testimonial or two on how it saved the day. And of course, it's a revenue stream.

But aside from just appealing to the average user, a good solution must never annoy any significant set of users. During the inspection to take the truck away, I asked to remove the items, and could not. Inflexible solutions are not solutions at all.

"Why is there a dedicated button on the keypad to bring up the web browser? Doesn't it charge me for this?"

"Why can't I trade the free ringtones, which I never download, for more text messages. It's all data."

"When I got the bill I found out that service was not included. It worked, and it was neat, but I guess I won't press that button anymore."

"I never use my phone for music. It's easier to use my iPod, because the phone makes you buy from their store."

Each of these decisions had a good marketing reason. I have been privy to some of them. They are exactly as defendable as requiring that I take the extra equipment in the back of the truck.

And exactly as bad an idea in the end. Not because they didn't reach some tipping point of user favor, but because some portion of the user population is actively annoyed by your clever feature, plan or marketing gimmick.

Sometimes, the almost trite slogans are actually spot on. While not part of the Hippocratic oath, a key pricnciple for much of medicine is Primum non nocere generally, but slightly oddly, translated as “do no harm.”

This is a reminder, in medicine, to consider what any interventive therapy might do. Not just to the immediate symptom or condition, but to others, to other treatments, and to the patient as a whole.

Interactive systems are always designed for use by large numbers of people. A common downfall of any number of designed objects, interfaces or systems is to appeal to the average or typical user, without consideration of the whole population. Most features are not universally beloved, and some that are liked by some are reviled by others. It’s a balancing act to not harm the perception of a product or service when improving in some other way or for some other group of users.

Once a fundamental decision of billing or feature inclusion/exclusion is made, no amount of paint and stickers can be guaranteed to satisfy everyone.

This is the sort of value UX professionals bring to the table. This is how the analytical mindset varies, why personas are not market segments, and why design always needs a role – early – in product development, not just execution.

Very nice writeup Steven…

Yes, the UHaul example is a great example of a potential revenue stream that was hacked in, and thus it has a bad user experience; i.e. is right in the middle obstructing. At a minimum, they could have implemented a “minimize harm”, by placing it on a more convenient place. I wonder if this “UX decision” was made by a store or at the corporate level.

Cheers,
ceo

I had the same response as Ortiz while looking at the photograph. There’s obviously a ledge in the back (front of the truck, actually), but you might decide you need it halfway through and then can’t get to it.

I get the feeling there was a smart, educated person that could have prevented this but was so hacked by the fact that it was happening that they just kept their mouth shut and let it continue in the worst way possible. hehehe.