No wonder Aaron Marcus has no friends
I think I finally understand the problem normal people have with user interface people.
Even though it has been done many times before (by Jakob Nielsen and Don Norman), this time Aaron Marcus slums as the hoi polloi to understand their TV watching habits. Because the world doesn't have enough articles about how remote controls are difficult to use and how blockheaded consumer electronics companies are.
The article is a lengthy description of the time he has to spend researching the equipment, and all the people he has to talk to. He doesn't say so explicitly, but apparently, he feels quite strongly that businesses should make it a high priority to reduce the amount of time it will take to install a TV set. So people can get to the wasting time watching TV part faster, I guess.
Early in the article he points out that he himself is too busy to watch much TV. It seems not to occur to him that maybe people who have the money to spend and time to make a home theater system worthwhile probably have a lot of free time. They may be more gregarious than he is, and not find it so objectionable to receive personal service from an in-home technician. Doctors don't make housecalls anymore, so this is probably an unusual experience for a lot of consumers that makes them feel special.
And why do I think he doesn't have any friends? Well, it seems he knows nothing of home theaters until he starts to research them, as if he knows nobody who owns one already. Is that possible in 2005? He relies completely on a magazine and the salespeople to tell him what to get. He seems not to enjoy this human interaction, as if the role of usability people is to establish human-machine interaction as the only interaction humans are allowed. And finally, he seems to miss the whole point: this is not supposed to be an efficient experience. If he had any friends who are home theater geeks, he would understand that playing with the equipment and bragging to your friends about it is at least as entertaining as watching MTV.
He seems to also miss the business point...the stores are charging you for their technicians. Retailers have learned from software companies that make a good chunk of revenue on services to install and fix the thing you wanted in the first place. While this might seem somewhat dishonest or immoral to purists like us, he should have enough sense to realize that this is not bad business by any means.
I wonder if he's invited anybody over to watch it yet...
1 Comments:
I worked for Aaron Marcus once and he is the most self involved ego-maniac I've ever met. You're article is right on. He has no friends. He's a mean and nasty man who believes in one God -- himself.
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