Conversation
A fair amount of the work I do involves the design of “user interface.” I don’t know who coined that term, but it’s interesting. I’m sure it was a software engineer, who divided his or her work into “writing the code that actually does stuff” and “writing the code that lets the user interface with the code that actually does stuff.” It’s a term with product-orientation–if we were consumer oriented, we’d call it the “product interface.”
But as I work in the product design field, I’ve come to think about products as actors in the world. It helps me to design the relationship between person and product if I think of the product in people terms: the product has a personality, it has areas of interest, it has a voice. In that sense, the design of that interface is as much about the product, what it has to say, and what it wants to communicate, as it is about how a consumer will manipulate it.
This week, I did some work with a team working on a product that must be installed by the consumer. The thing is installed by means of some straps and clips, some spring-loaded latches that must be unlocked, a part that turns. In the end, you know it’s installed correctly if it doesn’t move around too much when you shake it.
For me, the best tool to analyze and organize the process of installation (and, in fact, most things we do with products) is through a conversation map.
A conversation map is just a diagram of the back-and-forth between a consumer and a product. It captures all of the information that must be exchanged for the interaction to succeed. For example:
Consumer: I want to install you.
Product: Put my down with this end up.
Consumer: Like this?
Product: Yes, just like that. Now attach this strap to that clip.
Consumer: This clip over here?
Product: Yes.
Consumer: Did I do it right?
Product: Yes, you did it right.
The consumer and product don’t have a verbal conversation, but this is the information that is exchanged. Note that the consumer has a lot of questions, mostly of the “did I do that right?” variety; each of those questions, with direct “yes” or “no” answers, is an opportunity to provide feedback through physical indicators, or audible alarms, or what have you.
It’s a fun exercise, and really underscores the problems many people have with products, especially high-tech products. Consumers can reliably speak a few languages: their primary spoken language; body language; agreed-upon conventions like red=stop. But that’s it. If your product isn’t addressing the consumer in his or her language, it’s not communicating. And if it’s not communicating, the consumer’s questions are going unanswered.
Question for you: How does your product talk to the consumer?
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