Saturday, December 26, 2009

Forgiveness

While chatting with one of the interaction architects at work, he brought upon a topic I have to agree with. Users are very much willing to "forgive" usability mistakes under certain circumstances. For example, when Apple came out with the "puck mouse" back in the late 90s, advanced computer users hated it. Whenever a user placed their hand down on the mouse, they would need to stop working and look at the mouse in order to determine the orientation.

Round mice are a design flaw.

However, Apple users being the enthusiasts they are, willingly forgave Apple because they have a lot of appreciation for the brand. I find this to be a common theme. People are willing to overlook and forgive mistakes when there is a pre-existing emotional attachment to the product or brand. iPhone's initial lack of MMS? Apple iTV? Forgiving is what Apple users do.

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