Action Steps in Printer Use: Design Flaws for Visually (Un)impaired

After lunch with Carmen Aplegren, the intrepid publicist at the Braille Institute of America (and owner of Gal Pal Val, the amazing guide-hund), I realized we have a ton of stuff from our research about how design doesn't take into account the visual needs of users like me, or like Carmen, who sees a bit less of the world through her eyes (but more in other ways) than I do. So here's an example of crappy design. (And yes, we love our printer-maker clients and they are working on this. . . ). More examples to come, from other sorts of tech-tools.

Our Mulit-function printer (not the one pictured at right, which I borrowed from the Internet, but one rather like it), works quite well. Really well, in fact, and we use it plugged into our wireless router so all three of us can print with it, wire-free. But for scanning, you have to do some cable-rearranging.

You see, our printer is wrapped in a shiny black plastic case just like the one here. This means that icons or instructions embossed into it are rendered invisible to anyone over the age of 35. Which includes this writer and a lot of other humans who find office machine design thoughtless at best, or anyone with even the most minor visual impairment (which includes anyone peeking over to the dark, backside of a printer pushed against a wall, where it always lives: except in some Epson design center, perhaps—sorry printer-maker, its tough love).

To use the scanner, we have to unplug the USB cable from the router, and plugging in a USB cable attached to the nearby desktop computer, which has the scanning drivers loaded into PhotoShop. Sounds simple, right? Just a couple of steps. If only.

I count at least 25. Here’s the actual activity sequence.

1. Remove the existing cable that goes to the wireless modem. The cable promptly drops behind the file cabinet on which the printer rests, next to the wall (the printer sits on this low file cabinet). (Since it dropped, you can't tell the orientation of the business end of the USB cable).

2. Get on knees, grub around for the long end of the cable, pull it out of the crack between file cabinet and wall, and in the process, dislodge the cable from under the bit of wood flooring, the edge of which had covered the cable as it crossed a threshold.

3. Stick the cable back under the wood flooring so no one trips.

4. Get some scotch tape and tape the plug-in end of the USB cable to the file cabinet so it won’t fall down.

5. Find the desktop’s USB cable. That’s easy. Locate the plug-in end.

6. Try to reach behind the printer and plug in the chord.

7. Try again. The first orientation was wrong.

8. It is not going in. So, lean the printer over so you can try to see the USB plug in.

9. The business of leaning the computer over has unplugged the power chord. Power chord drops to the floor.

10. Get down on the floor again, pick up the power chord, and try to find a place to put it where you can reach it when you stand up again. This fails, as the chord is rather short and you don’t have a convenient outlet by this cabinet.

11. Get the scotch tape again. Tape the chord to the file cabinet.

12. Back to standing position (you’ve been on the floor twice now). Lean the printer over. You can’t see any indication on the black plastic to help you know how the cable is to be inserted. Its as little dark back there behind the printer, after all.

13. Move the papers off the top of the cabinet so you can turn the printer into the light, and

14. Move the desk light over closer to the printer. Get down on the floor again.

15. On your knees on the floor, with eye glasses off, a nearsighted person can make out the orientation of the plug-in.

16. Make a mental note of blood pressure, as you really wanted to scan a document for a client who you’ve told you would and could easily scan and send something promptly, and promptly was over with five minutes ago.

17. The phone rings. Compose yourself. Stand up again, dropping the chord behind the file cabinet one more time in the process.

18. Talk on the phone to another client (we are a micro-biz, so there is no one to else around today to answer the phone). Finish the call and hang up.

19. Back on your knees again to get the cable fished out, stay on your knees.

20. Insert the cable. Stand up.

21. Try to turn on the machine.

22. The machine won’t turn on because it is still unplugged.

23. Stifle the urge to throw the whole thing out the window and buy a manual typewriter and a stack of carbon paper with which to replace all your computers and printers.

24. Back on your knees to fish out the power cable which has fallen, again behind the cabinet (scotch tape wasn’t really designed to hold stuff like your power chord).

25. Plug in the printer and find your document and scan it at last.

Now, wasn't that a pain in the butt?

Innovación, Trabajo Científico, y la Sonrisa: Ejemplo Boliviano

¿Cómo hacerlos útiles los datos de un estudio etnográfico? ¿Como traducir hallazgos para que sean útiles?

[An English version of this post appeared below, here.]

Biólogos y ingenieros y—de vez en cuando—antropólogos se dedican a especificar la realidad, de documentar, de organizar lo complicado de la realidad en fórmulas, en taxonomías, y lo ponemos "en orden." Así es que intentamos de conocer lo que sea diferente, lo que sea lo mismo; es decir que hacemos categorías, compartimentos, listas. Descomponemos la realidad para lograr una nueva visión de lo que encontramos en la naturaleza, en el día en día, en la experiencia humana.


Todo bien. Pero ¿es adecuado el ojo frío del científico para innovar, para diseñar? Mi reciente experiencia en Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, me hace pensar. . .

Estuve tres días dando un taller, con un grupo súper capaz, súper diverso, súper listo y talentoso, explorando la metodología y epistemología de la antropología en cuanto a estudios para el diseño de servicios y productos. Fuimos al calle, sacábamos fotos, charlábamos y discutíamos. Me dieron permiso de usar mi español californio (y de vez en cuando lleno de Espanglishismos). Trabajábamos muy duros, todos.

Ahora bien. Día tres. Tuve el desafío de unir la experiencia del grupo en un resultado final, de empezar con un proceso de diseño frente a las necesidades que encontrabamos en la calle de Santa Cruz, en el mercado, en el parque, en el comercio. ¿Cómo hacerlo? Soy antropólogo; no soy diseñador. Pero gracias a Diós, tengo un collega en Los Angeles, Hai Nguyen, cuya formación de diseñador industrial me sirve como bastón. Le llamé por Skype y me dió sus consejos: seguir adelante con el proceso de dibujar soluciónes, de dejar a lado (por el momento) las especificaciónes y listas de necesidades interminables que resultaron de la charla y del encuentro con la calle. "Dejen las ideas fluir," me dijo. Buen consejo.

Pero cuando empezaron el último día, yo regresé a mi habitus analítico: empecé de darles al grupo listas de instrucciones muy detalladas. Hasta que me interrumpió un joven semiólogo del altiplano, un tipo simpático de esa ciudad tan colonial y minera que se llama Potosí. El estudiante me dio un "momento de enseñanza" (a teachable moment, como dicen los pedagogas).

Levanto la mano y me dijo: "Creo que haya algo para añadir al proceso."

"Hay que incluir la risa, el elemento lúdico. Si no sea divertido ¿qué tenemos, pues?" me preguntó.

Relámpagos. El soñar con el futuro es un proceso humano, y si olvidemos eso en nuestros esfuerzos "científicos" olvidemos por que y para que trabajamos.

Empezaron unas risillas sofocadas. Je je je. Y empezaron los grupos con su taller, trabajando, charlando, con risas y sonrisas.

Los resultados fueron desenfrenados, innovadores, impresionantes. Y me di cuenta de que el análisis es una cosa y la creación es, en cierto sentido, otra. Entre los dos si no entra una carcajada, olvidamos el elemento mas humano del proceso.

Airplanes and butter

Newsweek issue June 8, 2009, has an article about how many math and physics geeks have turned Wall Street into their playground, become partly responsible for the financial meltdown we're in now, and how some others math geeks are trying to see through the way financial engineering has worked.

What struck me right in the beginning is this analogy:
"Imagine an aeronautics engineer designing a state-of-the-art jumbo jet. In order for it to fly, the engineer has to rely on the same aerodynamics equation devised by physicists 150 years ago, which is based on Newton's second law of motion: force equals mass times acceleration. Problem is, the engineer can't reconcile his elegant design with the equation. The plane has too much mass and not enough force. But rather than tweak the design to fit the equation, imagine if the engineer does the opposite, and tweaks the equation to fit the design. The plane still looks awesome, and on paper, it flies. The engineer gets paid, the plane gets built, and soon thousands just like it are packed full of people and sent out onto runways. They fly for a while, but eventually, because of that fatal tweak, they all end up crashing."
(Revenge of the Nerd)

The article goes on to imply that it is the quant people that think they can forge chaos into equations to foretell financial happenings. Doing so, they have brought false prophecies to Wall Street and its believers essentially have brought it down.

I couldn't help but draw some similarities to our world of market research. In a similar manner, the quants often use formulaic surveys to form correlations that aren't necessarily there in real life. More often than not, I've encountered questions like "rate this" and "do you agree/disagree with that?". Even though the quants have solid methods to churn the answers people give for this kind of questions into some insights, the problem might lie not in this "churning" but all the way in the beginning: the survey questions. OK, here's another analogy: If you, a butter-making pro, are churning like hell and you don't get butter, the problem is not in your techniques, but it's in what you're churning. Can you churn, say, water into butter?

Standing in the ethnography playground, my co-workers and I have always been advocates for a holistic approach in market research. While I have much respect for quantitative methods, as least for the shear coverage of the population that we qualitative people could never dream of, I think research should start with exploring "what's going on," a part of it is testing what/when/where/who to ask and how to ask them. And we do it through careful observation in context of what's happening in the subject matter. It is qualitative exploration that identifies the cream so quantitative survey can churn it into butter.

We go deep for the quants to go broad. Together, we all will get a good picture of what we're after.

The mathematician in the article lamented about how the credit market has run, "They built these things on false assumptions without testing them, and stuffed them full of trillions of dollars. How could anyone have thought that was a good idea?" The entire article is quite captivating and relevant. Give it a good read!