Last night as I was flipping through the channels on the television, I stumbled upon a show that is ever so famous among teenagers today. Yes, you guessed that right- I am referring to American Idol. I came across something so regular. Yet, it was alarming to see the same sight on national television- a place where everything is expected to be perfect and flawless. It always portrays everything to be so perfect doesn’t it? Correction- it seems like this world has its glitches too!
Rather than watching the participants audition for the show, the door where each participant entered and exited baffled me the most.
It is quite ironic as we speak of usability every day, we work for the same cause and push towards the same goal- making things efficient and easy to use. But when we come across unusable products on national television we tend to laugh harder. Don’t we?
Let me explain what I saw. Here’s what the door looked like (above) - each side needed to be pushed, whether you enter or exit. The bars also provided the affordance to push the door. But there was one design problem that made all the participants push the wrong side of the door. The bar was present on both sides of the door. So now how would a user figure out which side to push?
As there are two doors, one to enter and the other to exit, the best solution would be to provide the bar on the door that needs to be pushed rather than having it on both sides. But what they have done is maximized resources to minimize the usability of the product. This design conundrum caused nearly all the participants to push the left side of the door. I won’t blame them really. After a stressful audition, just when they thought it was all over, they encounter yet another hurdle. To top it all, Simon Cowell, the judge, condescendingly said “the other door please!”
What did we learn from this tid-bit? Pity thy users. Please. If you intend a flawless program without glitches, provide usable doors! And yes, I mean this metaphorically as well.
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13th February, 2007 at 3:18 am
This is EXACTLY what I thought of….A TV show so well synchronized, but one, tiny do-able detail leading to :
1. Confusion
2. Loss of airtime
3. Embarrassment to the participant
OR.. a second thought…could this have come up as a problem, but is being used as a gimmick?
13th February, 2007 at 4:15 am
Inez, this is a great view from your end.
A gimmick? That could be a thought, considering the participants being mocked at. A problem turned into a gimmick, what more do they need?!