In closing, a cautionary tale
"Socrates said, "Know thyself." I say, "Know thy users." and guess what? They don't think like you do." | ||
| --Josh Brewer, Principal Designer at Twitter | ||
In this final section, I want to share a cautionary tale, a case study of sorts, about what happens when the UX mindset is ignored and "faster horses" wins out. Unfortunately, this is an all too common scenario that can have serious repercussions.
The story: A pilot purchased an experimental, homemade aircraft and decided to take her up for a short flight. The plane was small, with very little space for the pilot to move around. Here is a photo of a similar plane:
The plane had one previous owner, another pilot who built the plane himself. It was a sparse design that included two gas tanks, one in each wing and a fuel selector valve behind the pilots head to switch between them when one tank was low on fuel.
The cockpit provided very little legroom and no room at all to move around during flight. Because of such tight quarters and to avoid the possibility of a rupturing a fuel line in the event of a belly landing, the plane's builder chose to put the fuel lines behind the pilots head, a change from the original design that called for them to be placed along the cockpit floor. Another change in design was the location of the fuel selector valve. Rather than in front of the pilot, it was placed behind the head and over the left shoulder.
Prior to this particular flight, the pilot and his technician talked about the inaccessibility of the fuel selector valve and its resistance to being turned, at one point using a pair of vice grips and a small mirror as a workaround to avoid having to turn and look at it during flight. In retrospect, the plane's original builder was thinking about safety by changing the location of the fuel lines, but in doing so he created a number of critical design flaws. First was the location of the fuel selector and another was not considering an inexperienced in this type of aircraft. The the third was having to interact with a custom-placed fuel selector valve that, by all accounts, was hard to use. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before these flaws made themselves apparent.
As the investigators attempted to recreate the conditions leading up to the crash that took the pilot's life, it didn't take long to figure out what went wrong. The fuel selector valve, a non-obvious problem that the plane's builder never noticed, caused the pilot to extend right foot against the right rudder pedal in order to support body as turned the valve. This put the plane in an unrecoverable spin straight into the Pacific. It was over before the pilot knew what happened.
The aftermath: To call this a mishap a "PICNIC", problem in chair, not in computer, would be incorrect. Those not using a UX mindset might fail to understand that the user will work with what they are given, regardless of the challenges. They may try to compensate with a workaround, but it is the designer who is ultimately responsible for the outcome. Failure to design deliverables with a UX mindset—one's that have been thoroughly tested—can lead to disastrous effects. Now, I am not suggesting that the work of a UX practitioner is life and death, but without a UX mindset it certainly can be when we consider the range of industries in which we can work, such as aviation, hospital emergency room equipment and military technology. In those industries, good design is crucial and can literally be a matter of life and death if we get it wrong.
The user should never notice an interaction or have to think much about it at all. To put it in the simplest of terms, stuff should just work! It should do what the user expects it to do without distraction. Anything less risks failure. Unlike the pilot in this story, we have the opportunity to learn from failure and try again to make it better. Our customers/users rely on that. To ignore them and miss the non-obvious as a result will not be their fault. It is entirely ours. The UX mindset is a muscle that requires attention and usage to get the most out of it and to dispel the myths of "faster horse" thinking for good.
