I hate it when I get stuck with an interface
Is usability a priority when you make a purchase? Do your dollars go where the best interfaces and customer experiences are? I like to vote on usability with my wallet and my voice, but I’m noticing more and more that I have to rely on solely on the former, because rarely does anyone listen.
Stores- if the UX isn’t for you, you walk out and go somewhere else. Hardware and gadgets are also easy to vote on. If you don’t like it, you can return it. Software often has demos to try before you buy. If you are willing to spend the time and effort, you can eventually get the product and service that you want.
It’s a little different though when the experience you’ll be dealing with are second to the primary services. In most cases I’ve run into, these are month to month, service or subscription companies where you pay for a service and they give you the interface (software, hardware, etc…). You’re stuck with what they give you.
It’s a little muddy.. ok, let me drop some examples:
- Online banking/Billpay. When you sign up for an account, you may have as a requirement “I need web billpay and banking with my checking accout” -as most banks allow this, it’s not hard to come by, but you are stuck with the web app for better or for worse. I could post entirely on my bank’s setup (USAA- a throwback to my military days)
- Online billpay in general- you don’t have much choice of how your utilities co. builds their website, and unfortunately, your utility co. probably doesn’t care a great deal about usability
- Cable company. When you get cable, you are most interested in what channels you’ll get, what the cost is, what is the hardware capable of. You don’t have any say in the channel guide UI, and so you are stuck with what they give you
- Cell phone- This is a dead horse- your cell phone interface sucks. But you probably could have exchanged it for a better (designed) phone shortly after you bought it. Even more so, you had the opportunity to play with the phone in the store before you dropped any cash, so what are you complaining about? Well, first, there are no good cell phone interfaces (I hear Nokias are alright and have an emphasis on usability), second, I’m sure very few people are willing to go back to the store each week to go through the hassle of exchange (if they even can) and third, you just can only get a vague idea of how usable it is in the store.
There’s probably tons more, but these are what have upset me in the last day or two.
2 Comments
This is the benefit of open APIs.
For example, if you don’t like Amazon’s interface, you can build your own and only deal with them for checkout.
True, but as I alluded to.. those that realize the benefit of open API’s often realize the importance of the user interface as well.
It’s those guys that give us web apps, features and services whose only goal appears to be: add another bullet to the feature list to one-up their competitor.