As often seem to happen with me, I spotted a couple of items that seemed to nicely demonstrate two sides of a point.
The first was a piece on the radio about the rise in car insurance premiums (something that caused me a mild moment of rage recently). These rises are, apparently, to do with the increase in the cases of fraud that occur as people release their inner Pinocchio to try to keep their premiums down by giving details that are incorrect.
One reason given by the representative from the AA for this increase, was that people find it ‘easier to lie’ online, either to an insurer’s own site, or through a price comparison sites. I’m not sure it’s fair to suggest that all this mis-information is entirely cold and calculated, but an online approach does allow people to ‘adjust’ their answers to reach their aim, but in the face of human questioning , once you’ve given your answer, that’s it, it’s in the system – forever!
The second item that caught my attention was about train passengers reservations (pardon the pun) about using automated ticket machines, with many preferring to take the more time-consuming and more traditional approach of standing in a queue and dealing with a human being (I may be being generous in that description in some cases).
These two items highlight the difference between the way we like to give information and the way we like to get information that’s specific to us, whether it’s about us, or something we want to know.
Answering questions on a screen (or in a paper form) means we can decide exactly what we give away about ourselves. We have time to think and consider, time we wouldn’t have if we were face-to-face.
When we want to receive information though, it’s absolutely logical that many of us would prefer to get it from a fully interactive device, namely a human being. Think about it:
- It will answer the question we ask, not the one it wants us to ask it (unless it’s a politician).
- It will react to a blank expression and try and give the answer in a different way, and keep doing so till we understand.
- It will be instantly ready when we change the topic of questioning – there’s no need to take it back a step or two.
The bullets above are the blueprint for a perfect FAQ system. Unfortunately they’re pretty unrealistic. That said, they do illustrate the point that FAQs should be just that, the answers to questions that people have – frequently.
Very interesting! When I’ve worked at conferences as a volunteer, I’ve noticed how attendees will ask a person for information – while both are standing right next to a sign containing that info (like location of sessions or lunch)! That lesson sits at the back of my mind as a reminder of the importance of the real-life aspect of our work.
When I researched nursing homes for my late mother, I did so long distance. I couldn’t stand the text-filled pages (mostly blather, too). I wanted a human being to pop out of my browser, hold my hand, and say, there, there, we’ll take good care of your mum. Of course, that didn’t happen on the Web. However, it did shine through on the phone calls I made.
This all proves my point – that we should have a Masters or PhD in psychology and ethnography and anthropology – in addition to language and writing degrees – to do any proper communication work.
Thanks for that Karen. Far more insightful than the post itself.
I saw something recently about an experiment in a train station where exit signs were removed and a group of stooges (for want of a better word) were placed among the genuine passengers. These stooges then made their way to the exit, and lo and behold, the majority of genuine passengers chose to follow them, assuming they knew the way. Coupled with the experiences you’ve described it does become clear that we’d still rather trust another human who seems confident in what they’re telling us.
Perhaps it’s the confidence in the way an answer is given that inspires belief in the answer itself, and this is where written information falls down. If it fills the reader with even the slightest doubt, it is immediately less successful than getting the same information from another person.
You’re starting to touch on a topic that has festered, uh, simmered at the back of my mind for ages. I need to write a blog post about it myself. I’m talking about a concept I call “emotional usability”, although, as far as I can see, that term is already in use in a different way. I am talking about the state of person using a website or a document. They are stressed or emotional – I was very distraught and emotional when hunting for a nursing home. The need was urgent and the geographic situation was awkward. I was negative about the hunt before I started. Train (and plane) passengers are also stressed. Think Frankfurt airport, for example! I was in transit there once with very little time to spare. The color scheme and layout was lovely. There was no monitor in sight that could tell me where my next plane was parked. Frankly (ha, ha), I was furious at the thoughtlessness and inconvenience. Not that I have anger issues, but I knew someone had designed the place with some huge committee and they had forgotten ME! The passive info, like signage, was useless. Ground crew, the active info so to speak, was sparse. When I realized my bind, I mentally blocked out all signs and searched for a human being employed by the airport. Luckily, the first one I met was intelligent, knowing, and unfazed by a stressed person in transit.
Is this “emotional usability” or what? Psychic usability? Human usability?
I think emotional usability is a pretty good term, and I guess it’s the that’s actually hard to put into practice when researching a piece of design, or language for that matter. I would think it’s very hard to create artificial stress on research subjects because they know the implications of any wrong decisions don’t actually matter to them. In fact, they’re probably aware that any mistakes are good data for the researchers. And purely from a PR point of view I’m not sure many clients would want to create unnecessary stress on potential or existing customers.
Clearly your experience about at Frankfurt airport is a failure of information design (perhaps surprising as airports are generally held as being the crown jewels of wayfinding work). In fact, any situation like this where someone feels a need to seek human reassurance can be seen as a failure of information design. However, in many cases I’d suggest there’s a failure of belief too. As you said on a tweet ‘we don’t want to misunderstand’. If the likes of me do our job as well as we can, then there should never be any misunderstanding, but we’ll have to go a long way to beat the element of doubt that exists in a person’s mind, an element of doubt that increases exponentially with the importance of their decision – and of course their mental state.
I’d like to add something here that I think may colour your choice of example. Rail tickets in the UK have an inexplicable system of naming that means it’s almost impossible to figure out, from the ticket machines, which to buy. For example, my commute to work usually requires that I travel at the more expensive time of ‘before 9:30am’, yet the name of the ticket I buy to travel early includes the phrase ‘off-peak’. And that’s the tip of the iceberg.
It’s my impression that while many people do commute by train (and I think the regulars are the ones using the machines), a good deal of train travel is undertaken by people who don’t do it regularly enough to know which ticket to ask for; at that point, consulting a human being is the only option if one isn’t to get it badly wrong.
Just my perspective, anyway