No, That Phone Isn't Broken, It's Just Unusable
from the how-do-you-turn-this-thing-on? dept
From the "Not Surprising At All, Really" file comes a new survey out of the UK that's found nearly two-thirds of the new mobile phones returned to a major retailer there as broken aren't broken at all, it's just that apparently they're so difficult to use people think they're broken. The poor usability of increasingly complex devices is symptomatic of the mobile industry's usability problems as a whole -- particularly with the mobile content and data services that are supposed to be driving its latest renaissance. A survey of people who used data services for the first time during the World Cup found that half of them won't use it again, citing poor ease of set up and use as significant reasons, while other content providers report embarrassingly low response rates to content-delivery messages, something largely blamed on, again, setup and usability problems. The sad thing is that these exact same types of stories and surveys have been published for many years, but very little meaningful action is taking place, particularly from mobile operators, who must bear a lot of the responsibility for ensuring users devices are set up properly when they get them, but also from handset vendors, most of whom don't devote enough resources to software and user-interface design.
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Apple, duh.
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They already did that
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???
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Re: ???
So what has happened that everybody on techdirt thinks complaining about the first response is peak of their lives. It is easy to complain about the first post. All you have to do is have no life. Grow up and write a real response.
:-D
P.S. Please add the words "first", "1st", "post", and leetspeak derivations to the spam-flag list. :-)
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Re: ???
So what has happened that everybody on techdirt thinks the first response is peak of their lives. It is easy to have the first post. All you have to do is have no life. Grow up and write a real response.
I'm just gonna bitch because I can! - What a great mentality!
Maybe you should smoke a bong and calm the ph00k down before you open a web browser...
:-P
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My first first!
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Another Example of how media drives development
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Everyone will ONLY whine
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Treo 700w garbage?
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Not really surprising...
My little family has 4 cell phones we all use quite a bit. NONE of us use data services.
Here's why:
Using browser-based data requires VERY LONG periods of time just connecting the browser to the world;
Data transfer (with our provider and phones) is EXTREMELY SLOW;
Data transfer is OBSCENELY EXPENSIVE on our cell accounts;
Beyond simple text messages, data transfer requires a jillion screens, OK buttons, and key clicks.
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Problems with mobile devices
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Broken is in the eye of the beholder
On the other hand, if I give this exact same device to an executive in my company (a normal user), he says "Why has my email stopped coming?". I soft-reset it for him (which he knows how to do) and it starts working fine again. Eventually, he grows tired of coming to me to reset his device every week (which he really really REALLY knows how to do himself). So he decides that his phone is broken, reads an article about a "better" phone and decides to buy that, only to experience a different set of "minor" problems.
In summary, the Treo 700W works great for me and is "not broken at all". The same Treo 700W has problems for my company executive and is obviously "broken" and needs to be returned (or stuffed in my cardboard "broken phones" box to be reallocated to someone in my company who will better appreciate it, at a later date).
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What the UK should do
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poo-phones
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Brain Growth
These devices are for people that can handle the basic tech fuctions. Not for people that think their cool and just want them. Those vast majority of people need and phone that will make and call and that's it. DUMB IT DOWN - Just look at broadcast TV and you will see the DUMB IT DOWN at work.
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Like Apple or not..
ps I do not own one and yes it is because i am not a member of the Steve Jobs fan club.
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Apple will make it happen...
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Stupid people.
It is just that there are so many dumb people. I don't like that devices have to constantly be dumbed down to accomodate stupid people. It makes them less useful for smart people.
For example. There was a time when running everything on a computer through a command line interface was acceptable, normal, and very easy and fast for anyone with at least half a brain.
Then Microsoft came along and decided that all the people with less than half a brain needed computers and we got Windows. Now look what happened. Dumb people have infiltrated the internet and made it less useful by posting "first!" in every entry they can on my favorite tech blog.
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Keep it Simple
Why do they have to make everything do everything. Dont they know there are people out there that want a computer to do games and surf the web, a cell phone so they dont have to have a land line, a video camera that records on a VHS tape, and a tv network without the sell you crap networks.
I knew the world had passed me by when they stoped selling camcorders that recorded 9 hours on a single VHS cassette. I got a new camcorder and if Im lucky and use the longest setting I can get a whopping 90 minutes on a single tape oooooooh Im soooooo happy!!!!1!1!!!1
I know its possible for companies to produce high quality SIMPLE devices just based on the advances in tech. But they never will..... PROFIT $$$$$$$ the new controller, if they cant make a billion on it they dont make it. I am so sick of people not doing something because they wont get rich, life is not about getting rich its about having fun. If lifes not fun your doing something wrong.
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HCI Failure
But I actually keep a scrappy old phone I bought in 1998.
It's probably one a very few examples of its kind left because it had the battery moulded into the casing to make it non-replacable (designed obolescence), however I used my electronics skills to remove and replace it.
Why do I keep a phone that is almost 9 years old?
There are side issues like the fact it never got stolen because it is unattractive and obviously old. But the main reason is ease of use. It only has about 10 functions on it.
I graduated from my computer science degree in the late 1980s. One of the last subjects I remember taking was a unit called HCI. Human computer interfacing was a buzzword at that time and the subject was hailed as the latest all-new important research direction. We studied all sorts of cognitive egonomics, workflow analysis, interface layout....
Well it seems like I was the only one. Fully 10 years after I sat in that lecture hall I went out and bought a mobile phone and noticed that it had the text buttons labled like an old style 1950s telephone...
abc
def
ghi
and so on.
Only a complete fool could have made that design decision.
Letters used for text input should be arranged in frequency order, like morse code. The first key should be e, a, s ... with q appearing next to z on the last key.
I mean, does anybody use those 1970s mnemonics like dial
08000-123-PIZZA anymore?
I would love a job at Nokia or Erikson just to show those dimwits how to design a proper interface for an electronic gadget. Good interface design is an art, and the current developers haven't the first clue about it.
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