Archives / May 2005

Updating my recent post about "things that need to STOP", here's a This Is Broken entry showing a great example of light gray text on a white background: the Philips homepage. Ironically enough, the new Philips slogan is "sense and simplicity."
This Is Broken: Philips' home page visual design

I've spent my entire professional career online - over ten years at this point. That may not seem like a lot, but in "Internet dog years" it's at least 70, dag-nabbit! Or maybe I just feel extra-salty today... because I want to list several tech design errors that I've seen for years, that are showing no sign of retreat and are in some cases growing worse.

These are things that HAVE TO STOP:

• Cell phones that make noise when they turn off.

You're sitting in a quiet theater, and the person next to you suddenly remembers to turn off their phone, so that it doesn't make noise. And then, of course, the phone plays its cheery "turning off" song...?! Whose bright idea was it to have the cell phone MAKE NOISE when the user tells it to be quiet?

So: please test your new cell phone before you buy it. If we all stop buying idiotic phones, the invisible hand of the market will backslap the lamebrain who invented the "turning off" song.

• Cell phones that require a password to check voice mail.

When I call my voice mail, why do I have to enter my password - each time? Most websites, even e-commerce sites, don't ask for passwords that stringently. If it's a possible security concern, LET THE USER DECIDE. There should be a setting in the phone to allow users to access voice mail without a password. (I realize that some phones may not have this problem.)

And on the Web...

• "Gray text is cooler."

Everywhere I go online these days, when I read text that in the good old days was displayed in that eminently readable color, BLACK, more often than not it's displayed in gray. Why? Because, apparently, there's an unwritten rule among Web designers that gray text is cooler. (Or "kewler", depending on your age.) Let this crusty veteran tell you: light gray text on a white background is NOT cool, it's UNREADABLE. You wouldn't believe the places I've seen this.

Designers: online, the ink is free. Go for the gusto - I know it's a bold concept, but let's see some visual contrast, OK?

• "Small text is cooler."

More proof that most Web designers have bright, 20-something eyes. If the text on these "designed" sites isn't light gray, it's often tiny. Personally, I have 20/20 vision and I still have to squint to see what these "designers" have posted for their own enjoyment. Pixels ain't good under the microscope, kiddies. Make the text big enough for mortals to read.

• "Non-underlined links are way kewl."

In our listening labs, increasingly, we observe customers hunting for links that are right there in front of them on the Web page. These are not "newbie" respondents - they're regular Web users, like you and me, and they simply can't find the key link on the page.

Why not? Because the links are hidden - they're not underlined. As always (see the Page Paradigm), when users can't find the link they seek, they either hit the Back button or leave the site altogether. All because a designer thought it would be so beneath him, so declasse, to actually show underlined links (!) on a Web page.

I even see this problem on the company websites of practitioners who purport to be experts in user experience. Just sit a few minutes in a listening lab with a customer using one of these sites, and there's no question about the "worst practice" nature here. Designers: Underline your freaking links.

And, for the true-geek readers who dare to read on, a few problems in the software world:

• Animated zooming, jumping, happy, dancing things (like MENUS and DIALOG BOXES): I'm sorry, when did my computer turn into a cartoon? I'm here for productivity, not for the Smurfs. If nothing else, go ahead and entertain the newbie users, but let me choose a setting when I'd like to turn off the dancing and get some work done.

• Font-blurring: In the software world, called "anti-aliasing" - a nice idea that users should, but don't, have the choice whether to see. Right now I'm forced to look at blurry text in most applications, and there's no way to turn it off. Aliased text is clearer on low-res computer screens.

• Application windows that I'm no longer allowed to move past the edges of the screen - thanks, I don't need protection - let me "play guts ball" and move my windows where I please, OK?

• Toolbars, linkbars, button bars, function bars, list-of-bar bars, foo bars, and other featuritis that the developers (and feature-hungry marketers) just can't bring themselves to prune down. Simplify it, folks; otherwise, where does it end?

• Complexification of search results: Anyone else notice that it's getting harder and harder to simply find a file by name in the operating system? When did we lose the ability to execute this circa-1985 task?

• Once again: LET THE USER CHOOSE. All it takes is one settings panel, or preference pane, or whatever - buried appropriately deep in the operating system, where only advanced users can find it - that turns the machine back from a factory-built cartoon show back into the productivity machine that it's meant to be.

I am now off my soapbox and feel SO much better.

- - -

Update May 31: About that light gray text on a white background: see the new This Is Broken entry on Philips.com.

Update June 7: More on light gray text.

One of the great things about customer experience work is that it doesn't require a great salesperson - at least, not in the traditional sense. I have years of experience selling our consulting services, but I still sometimes get my words tripped up, or forget a turn of phrase.

Good experience, I like to remind myself at times like those, sells itself. Whether it's a consulting project, where results count; or in a totally different context - like at a Caribbean resort, where service counts; or anything in between - it's the experience that ultimately determines whether the business thrives or not.

Fred Reichheld recently wrote a piece in the Harvard Business Review called "The One Number You Need to Grow," focused on the "net promoter" metric. The idea is simple: the more customers you have that would be willing to recommend your service or product to their friends, the better your organization will do in the long run. I can tell you from the field that this idea is taking hold in executive ranks across global business, and it's worth knowing about. (Worth finding a copy of the article, too, if you can get it.)

Good experience sells itself. Note that "net promoter" says nothing - absolutely nothing - about how well your service is marketed via TV ads, promotional giveaways, or other traditional channels. It's the customers themselves who do the selling - and only then based on the actual experience they had. The best TV ad in history, plus a bad customer experience, equals a bad referral and a poor "net promoter" metric.

This is not to recommend pulling all advertising budgets, and it's not predicting the end of advertising. Those traditional channels will be with us for the long-term; it's the budget for customer experience that I think should, and inevitably will, see a change for the better.

So it's worth acknowledging the vast power that a good experience can have on the business, independent of the effects of traditional salesmanship. I know it's worked well for us at Creative Good.

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