Friday, November 12, 2004
A funny thing about reading online product reviews for computer peripherals, no matter what the product, camera, mp3 player, scanner, no matter how good a physical interface it has, every review says the software sucks. In fact, they are likely to recommend, a practice I have been following for years, not installing the custom drivers or software if your operating system can handle the device without it. I have never installed the software that came with my printer, my camera, or my MP3 player. It’s much easier to let the computer think they generic devices or hard drives. This is a sorry state of affairs, and unfortunately it’s likely to continue, at least for a while longer. Most consumers do not inspect software or consider it in making their purchasing decisions. Hardware interfaces have suffered from this problem for ages. Most people choose features over usability, and without an incentive for improvement, none can be expected.
In the medium term we may get some relief from the aging baby boomers. A bigger market of people who are used to technology, but increasingly have trouble with complex UIs could swing manufacturers towards simplifying their offerings.
For now here is some advice for hardware manufacturers in improving their user experiences. (Casio, RCA, Kodak, please pay attention this is aimed at you).
Since people are not making purchasing decisions based on included software, don’t include any. Which sounds better on a box “Plug it in, it just works!”, or “includes crippled off-brand editing software version 2”?
Let people buy their own software for organizing pictures and music. Since your offerings are all sub-standard anyway. Let them blame Microsoft for any problems that they encounter. Actually Windows XP manages to burn discs, import pictures from a scanner or camera, and manage media files, exceptionally well. If you can’t do better than the default, don’t bother. If people want more features let them buy it.
But wait Epson says, our printer has features that can’t be accessed from the default windows drivers. Who cares, if I needed them I would install your buggy resource hogging software. How about having 2 sets of instructions one for basic users, and another advanced. The simple ones can say, plug me in, and click ok. Users will be happy.
Now that I have managed to save all these companies money by reducing their development costs, as well as showing them how to improve user experiences, I have a subway to catch.
