RIM's Experience Woes

Rumors have been circulating for a while now that RIM is having trouble setting up their Blackberry Enterprise Server software to support their new QNX-driven devices. This doesn't surprise me as it's a symptom caused from a bigger issue: the experience isn't their primary concern. As RIM faces growing pains due to their OS software transition, they're not making the effort to shield their customers from the effects.

QNX devices are unable to get email, calendar or contact information. The customers suffer. When QNX is available for the Blackberry, there is no guarantee the existing apps will be available. Again, the customers suffer. How will existing customers react to their transition? What type of experience will new Blackberry users feel as they wait 9 months for apps to show up on the app store?

What exactly could RIM do in order to offset these problems?

1. The priority should have been to get the basics working flawlessly (email, calendar, address book). RIM should have focused on video and cancelled their purchasing of the 3rd-party video-editing software company. Communication takes priority over video editing.
2. You cannot put together a software dev team overnight and expect magic to happen. Developers who understand the Blackberry framework are an asset to the company. Laying off your existing devs to hire new ones? The folks in finance might see this as smart, but for the health of the company? It's bad.
3. Secure quality apps. Find the top app developers and offer incentives to produce QNX versions. Quality apps need to be available on the QNX platform. My favourite app on the BB was "BB Alerts". How ridiculous is it that RIM doesn't know whether this app will even exist?

I don't claim to understand the inner workings of a multi-billion dollar IT company, but from these seemingly minor incidents, I'm not even tempted to consider any RIM devices.

Google Wave

Six tiny words that adequately defines my opinion of Google Wave: "too many features with no direction".

When I was first invited to play with Google Wave, I was all excited about it but immediately became overwhelmed with the sheer amount of features it had. It had features like my instant messenger. It had features like my email. It had features like a PowerPoint presentation. The problem? I needed to relearn everything. Again.

Then came the question of who the software was built for. Who were the target demographics? Who benefits from using this software? These things are relevent because the majority of people aren't creative enough to figure out how their lives can be enhanced by these tools.

To this day, I've yet to figure out the full benefits of Google Wave. Perhaps I will play with it again some time, but by then, it probably won't be around.

One for the other

Of all the things I’ve noticed about software development, it’s that branding and experience don’t always mix well together. Properly designed, well-written software is supposed to be seamless and non-intrusive. When I enter an equation into my calculator, I expect it to provide me with an answer; I don’t expect the calculator to constantly remind me that it is made by “Casio”.

This poses a serious problem because if the brand isn’t in the forefront of the users’ thoughts, how will they recognize it? On my brother’s computer, the antivirus software makes every attempt at reminding me that it is “Norton” and it is tirelessly working in the background. By being so blatantly intrusive, it acts to reinforce the brand and to reassure those who fear viruses.

Ironically, this over-branding is what makes the experience so counterproductive. Norton does a fantastic job at reminding users that the internet is a dangerous place, but this has a negative effect in that it helps reinforce the fallibility of Windows to its users. As a Windows user, I fear it. How is Microsoft supposed to provide a positive experience when its users don’t trust the product?

Second Life

I never understood the fascination with 3D as a means to provide users with an “immersive” experience; especially with a costly taxation on CPU resources. “Second Life” didn’t have any logical incentives to lure users. Yes, it’s a 3D world and yes, you can chat with people in this world, but what else? The 3D world was only available to PC users with specific hardware requirements and operating systems. Without it, this immersive world was a closed eco-system.

As bad as this may sound, I’m actually quite happy Second Life never popularized. If they did, could you imagine the software and hardware engineers trying port this world so that portable devices could access this virtual world? Shortened battery life, lack of processor strength, overheating, and an operating system overhead absorbing valued memory resources. I’m sure the engineer geniuses could make it happen, but should it be done?

This is the same stance I have with Adobe Flash on handheld devices. Several of my coworkers have openly stated that Flash works extremely well with cellular devices *provided* these devices have the “right” hardware. Ignoring the fact that our desktop Macs have been known to crash due to Flash, what exactly is being asked? Have a mouse-less handheld device attempt to provide a user a similar experience knowing that they’re looking at a 4” screen?

That sounds rather painful.

Techno dance!

My programmer buddy who works at Electronic Arts was telling me how he doesn't feel creative directors provide projects with much value and, in fact, are a detriment because they drain the project's overall budget. I completely disagree. Did you ever see that Jet Li movie where he was in jail and during some of the fight scenes, they made a CGI "x-ray" view of the opponent's bones breaking? This is where a CD comes in.

When a movie --having nothing to do with computers, technology or electronic gadgets-- decides that they want fight-scenes to contain high-tech CGI animation and techno-rave styled music in the background, it rarely ever adds to the story. In fact, these things often feel so out-of-place, it makes the overall experience of the movie unpleasant. I can understand if these things were in a high-tech action flick, but not a drama!

Creative directors are the guys that meld these aspects together and ensures that the film has the appropriate eyecandy that coincides with the story. Now, if you're a creative director and are under the impression that rave music can work with *any* film, it's probably a good time to re-examine whether the audience will accept that vision.

Btw, might I add, Donnie Yen is the new Jet Li of North American-approved Asian martial arts films.

Screen resolutions

I’ve been having discussions with my coworkers about screen resolutions and I think it's quite unanimous that screen resolutions will get bigger as time goes on. That is, it will increase for desktop computers. Yet, upon further analysis, there is also another argument that is progressively clear: we have no idea *how* a user will browse web pages as time passes. We recognize screen resolutions on desktop computers will increase, but will desktops be the predominant method of accessing the internet? Apple’s iPad, HP Slate and even cheap netbooks are in high demand. In five years time, how certain are you that you’ll be viewing websites from a desktop computer?

The website that took over my computer

Practically every creative director I’ve come across seems to have this fixation on full-screen, Flash-based marketing websites. I don’t disagree with how immersive a full-screen site can be, but there is one rule that I feel needs to be addressed: don’t alienate the user.

I visited a website recently and upon landing on the homepage, the site’s full-screen video immediately initialized, encompassing the entire screen, disorienting me and ensuring that I no longer have control of my own computer. Not only was this upsetting, I immediately had no intention of ever going back to the site again. This is how you alienate your user: take away their control.

Would it be so hard for the homepage to offer a selection? Give me the option to view the site in a window? Perhaps even prepare me for the fact that the website will commandeer my desktop? What purpose does it serve to force a user to see the site in a specific manner? Does it help the client’s brand or does it help the creative team’s vision? Which is more important?

iPad

There has been talk about Apple’s new iPad where a lot of the grief comes from the fact that the device doesn’t support Adobe Flash. If I’m not mistaken, I believe everyone already recognizes that this device is meant only for consumption. It is a media consumption device that is not meant to produce media. This is why so many people are upset at Apple’s stance against Flash; it is an integral part of surfing the internet. That said, Flash is a plugin (read: “app”) whose features cannot be approved or disapproved by Apple. As it stands, Flash can do too many things and in a negative way for Apple.

• Users could play free Flash-based games rather than pay for them.
• Developers could build apps in Flash rather than on the iPhone platform.
• Apple cannot regulate the type of apps you use if these apps are Flash and located on a web page.
• Apple cannot regulate what new features Adobe decides to add into Flash.
• Flash can theoretically circumvent some iPhone/iPod/iPad security features.
• Flash developers could create interfaces that mimic and/or confuse –even trick—users.
• Flash is processor-intensive and might affect a user’s experience on the device.

Apple’s decision to ban Adobe Flash is definitely controversial. However, as a business and technical decision, it’s one that has been thought out very thoroughly. There are a lot of intelligent people at Apple and these decisions weren't made on a whim. Adobe, as with the rest of Apple users, can argue this out, the fact still remains: Flash can do too many things that can negative affect the iPhone experience.

(BTW, I still love my Blackberry)

Limitations and Guidelines

I've been working on a project where one of the personal goals I have set for myself is to try and maintain a consistent user experience. I'm well aware that "user experience" is often used quite loosely and if I were to ask a dozen people, I'd receive a dozen different answers. Regardless, I do think it's necessary to bring to light some of the things that have been surfacing in my head lately about online software development.

I'll first start by saying that I feel it's always necessary to maintain standards. Just as much as the iPhone has a consistent "swiping" animation, these visual aids --whether they're animation, behavioural or even just an underline on a text link-- need consistency. A user should be able to predict what happens when a cursor hovers over a button or when it is clicked. Intuitive design requires a level of predictability.

Even though the creative team has been rather reluctant with setting "limitations" to creativity, I've been trying to set guidelines. These guidelines are rudimentary at best, but they include standards for CSS, animation and behaviours on a per-project basis. Perhaps this may prove to hinder our designers, but I can't comprehend how ten different button rollover animations will help the end-user other than confuse them.

Fonts

An interesting thing occurred just now. I wandered onto a Flash-based website and when I was about to start browsing, Mac OS X displayed a warning telling me that the application (Adobe Flash) was trying to access a specific font in my system. I'm conflicted. In terms of security, this feature is great. Yet in terms of usability, I think this is horrible.

This is the hypocrite in me speaking. I absolutely love the security features that Mac OS X has and have no reservations in tending to a few additional burdens provided that they are required. However, if I were a Flash developers with the intention of building an online Flash application, it would be upsetting to know that a portion of my audience base would get a security warning concerning them about a particular font.

iPhone multitasking

I'm constantly ridiculing friends and coworkers over the fact that their iPhone doesn't support multitasking. Can you adequately keep an instant messaging application consistently "on" with the iPhone? No, at least not easily. Yet even though I'll callously joke about it, I do agree with Apple's business decision on locking out the feature.

On a purely technical level, allowing the iPhone to support multitasking means the possibility of applications being "on" all the time. Poorly developed apps with memory leaks will consume the phone's memory after prolonged usage, causing the OS itself to become unstable and the phones to be unreliable. The app store fuels this problem in that a lot of the popular apps are not built by Apple.

By supporting multitasking, there is a high degree of risk for these phones to crash unless adequate quality assurance is made. What happens without it? When a phone is mysteriously restarting, will a normal cell phone user understand that the third-party app is the source of the problem? Or will these users just immediately blame Apple for a faulty product?

In terms of branding, Apple's products have never been about being a highly-configurable, feature-rich workhorse. Their products have constantly been revered as devices that "just work". What does this entail? A reliable product that doesn't crash.

Third party warranty damages your brand

I walked into the nearest Future Shop yesterday evening with my friends to purchase an Xbox 360 as a gift for our buddy. During the purchase, the sales guy started telling us about the horror stories he had "heard" with Microsoft and the "terrible hardware" Microsoft was putting out.

It should be known that I own an Xbox 360 and it did fail once before. Less than one week after sending my defective unit to Microsoft, I received a replacement. Their expedient service was stellar, as was the experience I've had with Apple and Dell products. However, the sales guy at Future Shop painted a very different story, one which included:

1. When the warranty expires, Microsoft will charge me $100 dollars to fix a defective unit and charge me for shipping.
2. If I choose not to fix it they will charge me to dispose of the device.
3. The sales guy "heard" from his friends about people who have had nothing but grief when dealing with Microsoft.
4. The sales guy stated he would "never trust any Microsoft product" without additional warranty coverage.

I think it's pretty obvious that this sales guy gets a commission for every warranty package he is capable of pushing onto customers. However, for the sales guy to spread lies and conjecture, thereby making the product sound utterly unreliable, what sort of confidence should I have with Microsoft?

A more valid question: If Future Shop is partnered with Microsoft, should FS employees be ruthlessly destroying their partner's reputation?

Experience

An interesting thing about "user experience". Several months ago, I made it a point to ask a handful of coworkers from every department what they felt gives users a "positive user experience". Even within our organization, this definition isn't something that is mutually agreed upon. Each team, project and discipline has their own interpretation of what creates an exceptional user experience.

For me, the analogy I base my interpretations is from gourmet food. "Fine dining" is all about the "experience" of consuming food. It isn't about foods that have an overwhelmingly sweet or salty flavour. It isn't about consuming the appetizer or main course. It's the subtle nuances that are culminated from all aspects of the meal; not just from one specific course or entre.

When focusing on user experience in relation to software development, all the tiny nuances make a significant difference to the end product, but they are just that; "tiny" nuances. On any given project, how many clients would be willing to put out the time and budget in order to give developers the ability to focus on the minor -- often neglected -- functionality? There needs to be a median; I just haven't found it yet.