8.2 Good and Poor Design


Usability is a focal point when it comes to interactive product design.
The products that are designed have to be usable by users, regardless of ability and expertise.
For this part of the lecture, we will be comparing well and poorly designed interactive products, as this is the
best way in order to communicate the various factors that contribute to the good/bad design.
The strengths and weaknesses of each product is identified, giving us a better idea of what makes an
interactive product usable. We will look at a voice mail system.

Voice Mail System
This scenario is set at a hotel room where you have just arrived, realizing that you have forgotten your mobile
phone, you now have to rely on the hotel's telephone facilities.
You know that the hotel has a voice mail system for each room.
You need to find out if you have any messages so you pick up the phone.
If you hear three beeps ('beep, beep, beep') then there is a message.
However, you do not know how to access this message but find a set of instructions beside the phone that
you need to read.

8.2 Good and Poor Design


You read the instructions and follow the first step:
Step 1 - 'Hit 55'. You press 5 twice on the keypad causing the system to respond as follows:
"You have reached the hotel's voice message center. Please enter the room number you want to
leave a message to"
After hearing this, you presume more options will follow, explaining how you can access your
recorded messages but there are no further instructions. Confused, you look at the instruction
sheet and follow the second step
Step 2 - 'Hit *, your room number, and #'. You press *97# on the keypad the system to respond as follows:
'The mailbox for room 97 is reached. To leave a message, please type in your password'
Now you realize that this is not what you want to do, as you want to listen to any messages that are left for
you, not wanting to leave a message for yourself.
As well as being confused, the voice mail system starts to irritate you as you do not know the needed
password and you type your room number but it does not work, and you have not been notified of this
beforehand as well as not been provided with any information on how to find your password.

8.2 Good and Poor Design


You give up and phone the hotel reception who explains to you how to listen to your messages, record a
message as well as telling you your password.
After being told that to access your recorded messages, you need to follow a complex 6 step procedure, you
decide to go to the shops and buy yourself a new mobile phone!
What are the problems with the hotel's voice mail system?
It is confusing.
It is not efficient as it demands the user to carry out many steps in order to complete basic tasks,
making it difficult to use.
It is not obvious what to do and two sets of instructions existed; one on the sheet of paper and one
through the voice mail system itself.
Also, the instructions themselves are not clear as they do not explain how one finds out his password
for example.
To find out how many messages you have, you need to pick up the phone and follow many steps. This
could be solved by displaying the number of messages one has on a display on the handset itself.
Now imagine you went to a different hotel and you realized you have forgotten your mobile and decide
to use the hotel's voice mail system.

8.2 Good and Poor Design


You approach the telephone handset in your room to find designated buttons for 'recorded messages'
and a button allowing you to 'leave a message' as well as being provided with the password (see
Figure 1.1).
Finally, this telephone set allows you to instantly know how many messages are left for you.
This would save you a lot of time and stress and would make the experience a lot easier and
pleasurable to use, compared to the previous, poorly designed system.
Figure 1.1: Well-designed Telephone/Voice Mail System