Chapter 12: The Expressive Interface

Overview

Pete Dixon and Panu Korhonen

The consumer electronics industry has always had the biggest hills to climb when trying to make every product truly user-friendly. In many other industries millions are spent on designing and testing complex systems that are completely contained; the system is used only within a certain set of formal constraints, whether they are location-based, training-related, and so on. The operator of a spacecraft control computer (see Chapter 2) was initially selected for having a certain aptitude and was then trained for many months before being given the responsibility of actually using the computer. Even your average office PC user will have some rudimentary education on how to use the computer and office software applications.

In the world of consumer electronics, things are different:

• Anyone can buy your product-assuming that they can afford it.

• Few will take the time to read the complete manual-even when we run into problems, most of us will struggle with menus and workarounds for some time before admitting defeat.

• All consumers must get what they want out of the product in terms of value.

So far we have had reasonably simple consumer electronics products to design, such as mobile phones, TVs, or microwave ovens. With these devices, consumers have limited things to do-make a call, change the channel, or reheat yesterday's dinner. And they have only limited ways to do it-tap in a phone number, reach for the remote control, or set the cooking time.

In general we can say that the usability of our products is relatively good. Designing usability down to the lowest common denominator does make for a very usable-if occasionally dull-product. But if we work on the principle that each buyer or user is an individual (a point emphasized in Chaps. 4 and 5) and that the number of possible options buyers want is increasing exponentially, then we either find a better way or run into some very big problems.