User Experience Matters
I've been putting off getting a new phone for many reasons. The last time I got a phone was 2 years ago and I got so angry about a text messaging bug that I got in trouble with Craig for cursing and talking bad about Verizon. Craig even argued with me that it isn't a bug, but I told him they had more than 5 choices of how to handle this issue and they chose the 1 worst possible answer for the user. Here is the situation.
When you send a text message from a Razr to any non-verizon phone which has more than 160 characters the additional characters would not fit into one message. What that results in is a series of choices. Either Verizon could restrict the entry to 160 characters if they KNEW the message was going to a non-verizon number (but that would require more work to actually know in advance what network the message was going to), they could alert the user before sending that the message would be lost after 160 characters IF anyone they are sending to was not on Verizon. They could give the user a choice of sending the rest in a new message before sending. They could offer a "settings" option where in this situation a user could set the default to send 2 text messages in this case. Worse, but still useful, they could save the rest of the characters in a draft message if it couldn't be sent. But no. Here is what they did.
They give the user NO alert, but once you sent the message they text you back immediately that you MAY have lost the rest of the message without specifying WHICH recipient wasn't on Verizon. You lose all of the remaining characters, so have no way to send them again. This has resulted in partial freaking addresses. Unintended meaning in sentences. Jokes with no punchline. Frankly it makes me so mad when I hear that sound of an immediate text message coming back that it LOST my message and I have no idea who would get the rest even if it bothered to save it for me (which it didn't) that I hate my phone, I hate Verizon, and I don't want to buy anything from them again even though the reception for phone calls was better than any other network. What Verizon fails to understand is that I don't like to talk on the phone. I like email and text messages. They made a terrible decision on ONE common situation and failed to make a reasonable option for a texter who can get verbose.
Yesterday I bought an iPhone. WOW. I am blown away. I feel so bad for Craig. He bought a Fuse. I experienced absolute wonder and delight discovering my iPhone features. He discovered frustration and disappointment with intermittent excitement. The difference? It's all the UI and the experience. I can not believe how attached I already am to my iPhone. Now I get it. It is so fun to play with. People will pay for an amazing experience. That's all there is to it. People don't emotionally care at all about the logical reasons why. Do they WANT to use it? That's the difference. That is why the iPhone is smoking all of the other so called "smart" phones. You'd think people who know advertising and marketting would get it. Sexy and fun and "smart enough" always trumps "super smart but kinda dumpy and dull" when it comes to popularity. It is just built in that we love eye candy and it makes us feel good. So, in short, the iPhone is so amazing that it doesn't even feel at all like a phone. It feels like a miracle. It feels delightful. It feels like a privledge to use. I'm blown away in love with this gadget. I love it like I love my Roomba. That much. Good luck prying it out of my hands.
When you send a text message from a Razr to any non-verizon phone which has more than 160 characters the additional characters would not fit into one message. What that results in is a series of choices. Either Verizon could restrict the entry to 160 characters if they KNEW the message was going to a non-verizon number (but that would require more work to actually know in advance what network the message was going to), they could alert the user before sending that the message would be lost after 160 characters IF anyone they are sending to was not on Verizon. They could give the user a choice of sending the rest in a new message before sending. They could offer a "settings" option where in this situation a user could set the default to send 2 text messages in this case. Worse, but still useful, they could save the rest of the characters in a draft message if it couldn't be sent. But no. Here is what they did.
They give the user NO alert, but once you sent the message they text you back immediately that you MAY have lost the rest of the message without specifying WHICH recipient wasn't on Verizon. You lose all of the remaining characters, so have no way to send them again. This has resulted in partial freaking addresses. Unintended meaning in sentences. Jokes with no punchline. Frankly it makes me so mad when I hear that sound of an immediate text message coming back that it LOST my message and I have no idea who would get the rest even if it bothered to save it for me (which it didn't) that I hate my phone, I hate Verizon, and I don't want to buy anything from them again even though the reception for phone calls was better than any other network. What Verizon fails to understand is that I don't like to talk on the phone. I like email and text messages. They made a terrible decision on ONE common situation and failed to make a reasonable option for a texter who can get verbose.
Yesterday I bought an iPhone. WOW. I am blown away. I feel so bad for Craig. He bought a Fuse. I experienced absolute wonder and delight discovering my iPhone features. He discovered frustration and disappointment with intermittent excitement. The difference? It's all the UI and the experience. I can not believe how attached I already am to my iPhone. Now I get it. It is so fun to play with. People will pay for an amazing experience. That's all there is to it. People don't emotionally care at all about the logical reasons why. Do they WANT to use it? That's the difference. That is why the iPhone is smoking all of the other so called "smart" phones. You'd think people who know advertising and marketting would get it. Sexy and fun and "smart enough" always trumps "super smart but kinda dumpy and dull" when it comes to popularity. It is just built in that we love eye candy and it makes us feel good. So, in short, the iPhone is so amazing that it doesn't even feel at all like a phone. It feels like a miracle. It feels delightful. It feels like a privledge to use. I'm blown away in love with this gadget. I love it like I love my Roomba. That much. Good luck prying it out of my hands.
My KRZR saves all of my outgoing texts, and Sprint automatically splits it and sends two if it's too long, for both incoming and outgoing.
And Steve Jobs has made his career (and Apple's) on refining the user experience, at the expense of all else if necessary.
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Craig thinks I'm "over the top" about my enthusiasm with my phone. His Windows Mobile Fuse has frozen so many times. To take my picture once took him 2 minutes the UI was such a mess. He insists his phone is "better for business". Le sigh. I'm just glad he works on a product I LIKE and not Windows Mobile. They have about 5 years progress to make up if they want to compete with the iPhone and not totally fail and look foolish doing it, and all of the work in performance, reliability and user experience.
Steve Jobs has driven so much innovation over his lifetime that I very much hope that his health improves enough that he can drive more competition and raise the level of the user experience for all computing platforms for years to come. I also hope more new talent continues to develop so that when he retires and eventually is no longer with us that innovation continues just as strong.
I believe there is a gaping hole opening up in testing in general where too many testers are focused on creating good code and not enough are user advocates. I believe there is a hole opening up in the business of software and innovation and good user experiences are getting lost in the shareholder shuffle. I hope that each person who is passionate about software who participates in creating it will continue to measure themselves against a higher standard than just if they personally got paid for the job they did or not, but have pride in the total end software product that they worked on.
I guess my point is that as over the top as a person like Steve Jobs can be, I prefer that to a person who has no passion and just got into computer science because they heard it paid well.
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