This is the best airline boarding sign / display I’ve seen to date. Its by Alaska Airlines. The display hangs close to the gate and prior to boarding has things like departure information (or arrival info if a flight is arriving). When the airline is ready to get people on board, the display switches to this image. It quickly lets you (a passenger) figure out if your row is boarding or not.
At some point in the future I hope to see the displays include a diagram of the rows indicating which rows are boarding. Many flights board “from the rear of the aircraft”. A diagram showing the rows would make this easier to understand.
Snapshot and closeups of the watersaving pressure flush
As a user experience designer, I can’t help constantly evaluating the designs of new user experiences. I’m also very conscious about conservation and believe that reducing consumption is critical. So I was delighted on a recent trip to Oregon to find that one of the visitor centers was fitted with a two setting flush. Push the lever one way and get a small amount of water, push the lever the other way and get a regular flush. Most of the time, the toilets are only expelling liquid and the little flush works fine. This saves water.
The problem is that the flush doesn’t match the UE principle of making the easiest behavior match the default action. For example, in a dialog box, this is like putting focus control on the “OK” button. The most easy “gesture” with the lever is to push the lever down. But pushing down does a regular flush, which most of the time wastes water.
The flush should have been designed with a push down for a small flush, and a pull up for a regular flush. That would match the easiest action (push down) with the default behavior (small flush). This would save the most amount of water. The small percentage of users who pushed the lever down when they should have pulled up will either repeat their action or read the instructions and pull the lever up.
ATMs are great. You’re no longer restricted by where your bank is and when it is open. But, I wish they’d spend a little more time getting the designs right. The image above is from an ATM I used. The ATM has Braille, which is wonderful. You can see the Braille in the strip above the envelope insertion slot. I can’t read it, but I assume it says that the envelope slot is below. This is a very nice touch, great attention to detail. In addition, all the edges are gently rounded, there are no sharp corners, overall a very well executed design.
Given the attention to detail, what I don’t get is the image showing you how to insert envelopes into the slot. Its bad…
The biggest problem is that the orientation of the envelopes+slot icon and the arrow is wrong. It looks like you’re supposed to pull the envelopes out of the slot.
The second is that the envelopes look like they are going into the slot along their width, rather than the edge.
It also looks like you’re supposed to put in a stack of envelopes.
The arrow may have been intended to indicate where the slot is. However, that is confusing. It is so close to the slot+envelope graphic that it looks like it telling you what action to perform.
ATM With the insertion graphic moved to the slot
A better design would be to move the envelope insertion graphic to the deposit slot (and fix its orientation) like the image above.
Companies are always looking for ways to cut costs. When I managed Sun’s industrial design team, I learned about keeping costs down. The graphics are printed onto the metal using silk screening. Images on two separate bits of metal is twice the cost. The two bits of metal (silver and gray in the picture above) might come from different sources. The silk screen should not bother trying to tell you where the slot is. It is large compared to the graphic that it is hard to miss. Also, trying to show the envelopes / envelope stack is too much detail, and adds to the confusion by suggesting the envelopes go in face down. Simplifying the graphic has a better result.
Simplified Silk Screen icon
I’m guessing the team that designed the ATM had a decent design. Most likely, someone who was responsible for cost cutting made some design changes without consulting the design team. Whenever Sun’s team needed to cost cut, they worked with the ID team who modified their design to fit the constraints.
Close up of Droid x "Eagle Eye" ad from Google / Verizon
Snapshot from Apple "Haircut" ad for Facetime
The ads for Droid phones and iPhones are like windows into the design souls of the teams behind them. If you watch TV, its hard to miss the ads, but if you haven’t seen them, they are embedded at the end of this post.
The iPhone / Facetime ads are totally about the user’s experience. They are shown to you as if you were the person holding the phone. This makes you part of the ad. Talk about “an immersive experience”… The ads are so good at communicating their message that don’t refer to the product (except for the end credits). The are all about communicating the experience that their customers have. This reflects the design philosophy behind the iPhone, where the experience rules. The ads are also funny and / or tug at your heart strings, which doesn’t do the product any harm.
The Google / Verizon Droid ads are different. They focus on product features, like the “1 GHz Snapdragon processor.” They tell you you can’t handle the speed. They tell you that the technology is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before, that your eyes won’t be able to keep up, though you’d be able to find your human friends if you had any.
My initial reaction was that the Apple ads were brilliant and that the Droid ads were geeky. The Apple ads reflect the very best of user centered design and are completely focused on expressing the user’s experience. The Droid ads refer to arcane details about the phone that are seem relevant to the experience. But there is more to it than that.
The Apple ads are aimed at people who don’t care about the underlying technology, but just want it to work. That probably describes 90% or more of iPhone customers. The ads show them an experience they could have. The “There is an App for that” iPhone ad series was similar: it talked about what users could use their iPhone for. iPad ads are the same as well. All this points to a consistent philosophy of getting things to just work for the user.
If the world was made up only of people who wanted things to just work, all smartphone buyers would buy an iPhone, and the phone wars would stop. But the very healthy sales of Android phones tell a different story. There are a whole set of folks who do care about speed, and processors, and features, and Droid phones suit them perfectly. I suspect they find the canned experience of an iPhone stifling. Its much easier to tinker with a Droid than with an iPhone, and that appeals to many folks. When I was in Taiwan earlier this year, a kid said to me that his HTC phone was better than my iPhone. I’m sure that in many ways it is.
The point is that the technical features of the Droid phones are part of the experience. Some people like to drive sports cars knowing that their car is capable of speeds they will never use. (And I won’t get started on SUVs…) My wife will tell you that I buy tools which can do many things that I’ll never do. Just like that, some folks will buy Droid phones because of what they are capable of. They like the freedom to customize what is in their phones, and like the possibilities their phone enables.
As designers we need to keep in mind what drives users. Some are very happy with Apple like simplicity, some want the features. The other thing that designers need to be true to is the organization’s design philosophy. The product (and the ads) should reflect the design philosophy, just like the Droid and the iPhone reflect the philosophies of the companies they come from.
