Just because the product is slapping you on the wrist, doesn't mean it's your fault.
As I mentioned the other week, I spent the weekend out on my mountain bike sending myself down the side of a mountain. Perfect trails aside, the trip to and from our destination was about six hours drive from where I live. I drove with a mate who lives close by, and we took his work van. Being such a hike we shared the driving, so I ended up spending roughly six hours driving his Toyota HiAce.
This HiAce is only a few years old and for context I main a 2002 Toyota Landcruiser Prado. That's nearly 20 years worth of additional technology packed into what I drove on the weekend compared to what I normally drive. For a big van it's pretty easy to get along with and we got along famously, that is except for Lane Departure Alert.
Lane Departure Alert
Lane Departure Alert is, in Toyota's words:
designed to help prevent vehicles drifting from their lane, by monitoring road markings, and providing a visible and audible alert should it detect any deviation from the lane.
Not having Lane Departure Alert (or any other alerts for that matter) in my daily driver, trying to drive with it (or more accurately, against it) drove me crazy. To the point I turned it off completely.
Having the vehicle tug on the wheel and feather the accelerator if it thinks I'm going too close to the lane line, not even over it, is incredibly disconcerting. The sensation is very similar to hitting a deepish puddle in the road.
The problem is, there is nothing wrong with my driving. It's perfectly safe. I'm completely aware of my surroundings and in total control of the vehicle. The vehicle shouldn't need to try and keep me in my lane because I'm doing a fine job of it, thank you.
As well as get on my nerves, it reminded me of another incident going through security at DFW airport a few weeks ago.
Compliance Departure Alert
I'm pretty good at making life easy for myself when passing through airports. Airport security comes in all different shapes and sizes but I know the drill pretty well. Even when travelling with tricky items like prototype orthopaedic instruments.
Stepping out of the mm wave scanner this time, the TSA guy wanted to give me the full pat down. It's not the first time of course. In fact, I think it happened last trip when travelling through Montreal. In fact, wasn't I wearing the same pair of pants last time? I said as much to Mr Hands as I put my arms back down.
"Maybe you shouldn't wear those pants next time." Was his reply. At the time, I laughed it off and walked away. I didn't think anything more of it until an hour or so later.
The problem is, there is nothing wrong with my pants. My pants are perfectly normal. They are perfectly safe, moderately fashionable, and there is nothing in them except my human form. The scanner shouldn't tell the TSA guy there's something worth taking a closer look at in my pants, because there simply isn't. Thank you.
I actually got mad for a moment. Why do I need to where different pants because the scanner isn't good at its job?
Outsourced Problems
Outsourcing problems seems to be the way of things at the moment. Moloch at its finest.
So much so that as consumers our baseline attitude is that if something is wrong with the products we use, then it must be something we're doing wrong. We're not driving centimetre perfect, or we're wearing the wrong pants for the security scanner.
I challenge you over the next week to observe the technology that you encounter. The features that get in your way and add friction to the thing that should be simple and obvious. Is your reaction to blame yourself? Look closely and tell me if it really is your problem, or the product you're using just sucks at what its trying to do. Report back.
In the van on the way home I actually got wound up about it. My mate was reasonably defensive about the Lane Departure Alert. Though in his defence, he hadn't had the same pleasure of being frisked by the security guy and then being made to feel like it was my problem.
The fact is that these false positives are not our fault as users. If these devices are interrupting our normal use because they think we're doing something outside the normal parameters, and yet we clearly are not, then the product needs work. The fault lies squarely with the device.
Thinking about the Lane Departure Alert, I would much rather the system be more conservative when it is triggered, and quite happy for it to kick more aggressively. I don't want it interfering with what I'm doing until I am very clearly going outside my lane. At that point I can accept the car pulling on the wheel and easing off the power - I've very clearly made a mistake. Interestingly, my mate admitted he has likely changed his driving style to accommodate the over-zealous Lane Departure Alert.
Technonanny
In some respects this is one definition of good design (depending on the design intent); design fading into the background as the user focuses on the task at hand.
In every product category, packing features into the product is often cheap and easy. But as the saying goes; just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Adding guardrails in your product that make it safer, more streamlined, more convenient, or more automated can often have the opposite effect. On a long enough timeline users will become fatigued by the added drag in what should otherwise be a smooth workflow. If they have the choice, they'll eventually find a better option.
Remember, humans are weird and unique. They're intelligent, pragmatic, resourceful and adaptable. But they're also imprecise. Give them the slack they need to make your product work for them.
Don't make them work for your product.
