I recently took a family vacation to Washington, D.C. and Virginia, and, in my typical OCD form, found myself analysing what seemed to be every single experience needed for navigating our surroundings. The rental car was difficult to figure out (“The lights! Where are the lights?!”) The stroller that we borrowed just needed to be more intuitive. “Why is that map turned that way; it would be so much clearer if it was rotated a different way.” “Why is the chart to find out the cost to go from Foggy Bottom to Union Station so crazy?” “Shouldn’t the exhibit we want to see be here if the arrow on the sign points that way?”

I noticed a handful of important concepts, however:

1. Experiences are novel to each user. I thought one way. My wife thought another way. Her parents who were with us thought another way. All of the kids had their take on the situation. Experiences are novel perceptions. I know: news at 11, right?

2. Experiences seem to be more successful when users have more access to the control and representation layers of the instructional design behind them.

3. Metaknowledge of a task or series of tasks is helpful in navigating novel experiences. Ultimately, we ended up getting to where we needed to go with negligible sacrifice, although at times, our success depended on a sophisticated “meta” sense of the experience (“east is that way, therefore north is that way,” “the headlight control is going to be in one of probably three places,” “the event we want is at 2:00; lots of people are moving in that direction, should we go that way too?”)

comment by doug 1 hour later

Why can’t my alarm clock have two different alarm times? I get up at different times on the weekend/weekdays and it’s a pain to reset it every Sunday night back to 4:30 am.

Additionally, a small keypad or an iPhone-like set of dials would also help with the inevitable time-overshoot that demands that I scroll, again, through 24 hours or 60 minutes of time to get it just right.

comment by Andrew one day later

Simplicity and organization are the keys for most interfaces. The fewer steps the better and placement of the controls should be logical and helpful. Some examples: 1) I only press one button when I return a DVD to a Redbox machine: the “Return a DVD” button which then instructs me to insert the disk into the machine. Done! 2) My TV remote has a different size and shape of the most used buttons, channel up/down, volumn up/down, mute and recall last channel. You can tell by looking at the remote which ones are used the most and you can tell my touching the buttons which ones they are. 3) Andrew, time to get a new alarm clock. Mine can wake you to three sounds: radio, buzzer, or nature sounds and each can be set to a different time with a choice of going off on weekdays, weekends, or daily. Plus, it has forward and backward buttons to set the time. Useful, simple, cheap. www.timexaudio.com 4) Conversely, I bought a HoMedics clock radio for my son when Linen ‘n’ Things went out of business. You can only control the volume with the remote. Every other function is available on the base unit except the volume. So what happens if the remote goes missing or gets damaged? :( The irony is that the same up and down arrow buttons on the base unit work to set the clock, the alarm and tuning the radio. Why doesn’t it control volume? Big oversight.

comment by Matt Rasmussen 2 days later

My three criteria: - Ease tending towards invisibility, but not all the way - Beauty - Anticipation

That last one, for me, is predicting correctly both what I’ll want to do with the product and how. It’s such a nice feeling to think, “Wouldn’t be nice if holding down this key would do this?” and boom, it really does. They anticipated me!

Makes you feel loved.

comment by Colin Bay 2 days later

Andrew: I finally got an alarm clock with two alarms. It’s great. I can set one to wake up during the week and another for weekend snoozing/appointments. Can’t remember the name of it right now, but I’ll look.

comment by doug 2 days later

A truly great user experience is usually one that negates the use of a manual. Remember holding your first iPod? Form was function, and function was form. If you can use the product or service—intuitively, then you usually have one positive indicator for a great user experience. Add a good mix of esthetics and logic, and I think your dish is ready to be served.

comment by A. Christian Karlsson 2 days later