Washing Machines & Supermarkets
Washing machines
In an ideal world, I want to be able to use a washing machine without looking at the instruction manual. I want three buttons. Maximum.
My washing machine at home sports fifty tiny pictograms arranged around a dial, which look identical, but are actually different programs.
Can someone please explain what is going on here?:
I’ve just found a washing machine with an interface I like. The Indesit Moon looks as though Apple was involved, which is a compliment indeed. It’d also be interesting to see a washing machine with multi-touch technology, though I’m not sure how useful or desirable this would be on an ‘uncool’ domestic item like a washing machine. (iWash, anyone?)
Supermarkets
I’ve always wondered if there is a system behind the way goods are arranged in a supermarket. The consumer’s journey through a supermarket must be something that is taken into account by the industry. It’s comparable to how users ‘travel’ through a website, making use of visual signposts (including ads). I’m thinking a bit about shopping process, the order in which goods are ‘revealed’ to consumers, and how consumers travel through a shop, and how that could be improved.
I would like to be able to navigate my way better around Tesco. Perhaps there should be a height restriction on the stacks of shelves, so I could see my way down the shop. Maps should be inbuilt into shopping carts.
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I agree with your view on washing machines - however, this chap probably wouldn’t!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2244114,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=technology
Oh, don’t get me wrong… I love gadgets. I never read instruction manuals. I like to work everything out by myself, by trial and error. It probably helps that I’m young, and that I experimented with technology early on.
However, if something is designed in a way that is just not intuitive, then I believe the design has failed. Gadgets can get as complex as technology allows; they can and should still be easy to use. The challenge is to have powerful technology that can do a lot of stuff and still be easy to use.
I also think that blaming and mocking users isn’t the best way forward for the design industry. Charlie Brooker: “People over 50 are the worst offenders”; “Recently, I was on a plane, sitting beside an 80-year-old woman who couldn’t comprehend how the in-flight entertainment system worked.”
Mocking old people: nice.
Re: supermarkets
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4iYigkyVeQ
Rebecca, supermarkets spend a large amount of time and money (and have dedicated teams) on the customer journey. The store layouts are planned down to the inch, with stores having plans for every shelf so you see the products in the order they want you to. It is very scientific actually. Their aim? To make you spend more of course…
Matt, that’s very interesting. I suspected that’s the case. And clearly, supermarkets are not spending enough money.
I’ve noticed that any shopping list or plan I write tends to get eclipsed by the barrage of ads I face when I enter a supermarket. In addition to these irritating mental distractions, I rarely feel like I have much control over where I end up. I should mention that I don’t have attention deficit disorder.
I think there’s a lot of potential for improving supermarket layouts and three-dimensional spaces which entail some kind of human interaction or process (airports!), and it’d be fun to draw up some kind of prototype for improvement.
I remember studying about supermarket layout in a business class in a different lifetime. They do meticulously plan the design of the stores but not to make your life easier. Rather, they want you to spend as much time as possible in the store. So they’re designed to make you walk around as much of the store as possible and, hopefully, buy things that were never on your list.
Oh, and I couldn’t agree more about washing machines