I just got off the phone with T-Mobile, and wanted to say a few words on bad user interfaces (I like to think I know a thing or two about bad interfaces, having put some together myself).
It wasn’t a web interface, or a desktop interface, or any kind of traditional software interface at all that I dealt with tonight.
It was the replacement for the usual menu-driven expert system phone interfaces we’ve been using for the past few years. I’ve heard a lot of people bitch about the old systems, but these new things have quite soundly defeated the old ones where the incredible Badness of the experience is concerned.
—– The old crappy system —–
Phone System: Hello. Thank you for calling T-Mobile. Please listen carefully as our menu options have recently changed. If you are calling from a rotary telephone, then please hang up and join the 21st century. If you’re not calling on a rotary phone, then please help us out by providing some information so that we can better serve you. To begin, please enter your social security number, your mother’s social security number, your father’s social security number, your checking account number along with the bank routing number, and what you estimate might be your maximum groundspeed in centimeters per second if you were wearing sneakers and running over a hot blacktop on a summer day at an elevation of 3,400 feet while being chased by hungry aliens, followed by the pound sign.
You: [you grumble to yourself and enter the information]
Phone System: Thank you. Now, if you would like to continue this phone call in English, please press 1.
You: [you wait for the other option and realize there isn’t one – you press 1]
Phone System: Thank you. You will now be connected to a system that will ask you to re-enter this information. Please hold while we transfer you.
You: [you wait, hear several clicks, and then the connection gets dropped]
—– The new crappy system: —–
Phone System: Hello. Thank you for calling T-Mobile. Please tell me what you would like to do.
You: [you sit in stunned silence, unable to think or move – jesus – what do you want to do?]
Phone System: Are you there? You’re tying up the line. Please tell me what you would like to do.
You: I need help with data access.
Phone System: I think you said [pause] “I bleed kelp with dachshund axes” – is that correct?
You: No! I need help with data access.
Phone System: Thanks! That’s all the information I need. I’ll connect you to the kelp-bleeding department…
You: No! Wait! Stop! I don’t need to bleed kelp – not right now, anyway – I need help with– [you hear several clicks, and then the connection gets dropped]
—– Crap —–
The first system sucks because it was obviously assembled by a manager who thought he could increase his bonus by getting the job done without hiring qualified people to build the expert system. However, you could still manage to get a few levels deep into the system before being dropped.
The second system sucks because you’re just a customer of T-Mobile – you’re not a T-Mobile expert – and the T-Mobile system is now asking you to articulate what it is that you would like to do, which is going to be something specific to the business of T-Mobile. Unless you want to do something simple like check your minute usage, this thing is going to frustrate and anger.
Imagine how it would feel if you found a menu in an application like this:
In writing, I’ve heard this referred to as “The Tyranny of the Blank Page.” It’s difficult to operate when you have too many choices. Most people need a starting point to lead them into what they need to do.
The goal here is obviously to humanize the system, but it doesn’t work because humans can do a good job of interpreting ambiguous statements while the best a computer can do at the moment is pretend to understand what you’re saying, but ultimately pass you off to a live representative.
Blah.
I eventually figured out that the best way to get what I needed was to simply say “Operator.”