Everything requires directions. We all take steps to do regular tasks everyday. From taking a shower to starting your car, it can be broken down into steps - and there’s a lot of them!

Just think for a minute and break down your morning routine from the time your alarm clock goes off to the time you leave the house. And we’re talking individual steps here, such as:

1. Throw off covers
2. Sit up
3. Wipe eyes and scratch
4. Stand up

And so on…the more you think about, the more steps you have. But because you do it everyday and are familiar with your environment you don’t think about it, you just do it. You don’t question the trouble involved or wonder if you’ll be able to do it.

Now let’s add a layer of complexity. Turning on your car. Again, a thing we use everyday. We all had to learn how to drive, and again, let’s go to the steps:

1. Open door
2. Sit in seat
3. Pull seat belt
4. Snap in seat belt
5. Insert key
6. Turn key

And on like normal. At some point in time we were unsure if we were doing this correctly. You aren’t born knowing how to make a car work. Or make your washing machine go, or how to make soup on a stove.

But with things like washing machines, dish washers, and even toilets, we don’t have trouble or doubt our abilities. All these things are technology at work, even if simple physical technology. But what happens when that technology becomes “virtual”? It all goes to hell.

It doesn’t matter if the thing is a television set, a walkman, a remote controlled car, or a computer, if it involves complicated technology (read bits, bytes, and waves) everyone freaks out and instantly starts second guessing their abilities.

I was in a meeting recently that involved me telling a room full of managers how to use a new software product. The product is pretty simple - it’s essentially a list maker. They create a bullet point list and type in details for each one. Simple when you look at and see it in action, but verbally telling people the steps it sounds like you need a MIT degree to figure it out. So “virtual” technology has an uphill battle to begin with.

It doesn’t matter how user-friendly the product or web site is, just the fact that it is on a screen and not an object you can touch makes it hard to use - at least in the mind. But even a microwave was hard to use at one point, so why isn’t it still? Because we’re used to it.

So aren’t we used to virtual technology yet?

Especially in a place of business where computers are used everyday for almost every task, I would think that people would build up some confidence after a while…and it has been a long while.

I almost start to wonder if it is really smart to present a software product with words. Even directions don’t help, it might make it worse. I’m wondering if good design is enough. Give people more credit than they deserve and assume they know how to use and move a mouse around their screen. And what an icon is. And how to drag and highlight. They don’t want that credit, but you need to give it to them. At least that’s my new strategy. We’ll see if it works.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 4th, 2006 at 9:26 pm and is filed under All. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.