Author: Jochen Wolters

A Delightful Way of Scheduling a Service Appointment

Window washing is one of the few home chores that my wife and I have outsourced to a services company.

To schedule an appointment with such a company, you usually call them, hope that you don’t spend too much time in the phone queue, and keep your fingers crossed that they have an open slot for you soon.

There’s a better way.

During their visit last fall, our window washer asked whether they should put us on their calendar for this spring. We agreed, and eventually forgot about it entirely. Then, this spring, the company’s owner called and left a message on my phone.

He told me that they had put us on their calendar and would show up at our house in exactly two weeks. If that appointment would work for us, there would be nothing for us to do. If we needed to move the appointment, though, I should just call him back at my convenience.

A business call that focuses on the customer’s needs

Thanks to his call, there was no need for us to remember to make that appointment. By suggesting a date and time in the voice message, we could instantly check our calendars for any conflicts. And any necessary adjustments were just one call away, because we could talk directly to the person who made it.

What’s more, had I accepted the call, we could have made any necessary adjustments right then and there.

For us, two weeks’ advance notice is usually enough to make room in our schedule. This was also the case with this appointment. Consequently, all we had to do was check our calendars and add the appointment. Done!

Two days before the appointment, I received a quick confirmation call. On the day-of, the window washing crew arrived and rounded off this great customer experience with excellent work.

A great “design” for both customer and business

This process not only works great for the customer, but also for the company:

  • Putting appointments on their calendar for the next service period ensures that customers don’t skip an appointment, thus ensuring (repeat) income for the company.

  • Taking initiative by suggesting a date and time instead of having their customers do so, likely allows the company to more tightly pack their calendar.

  • Instead of having to respond to countless incoming calls from customers, they can bundle outgoing calls into a an hour, or so, per day, making the whole process much more efficient for them.

Compared to the call center hell that we usually go through these days, it is refreshing to experience a customer-to-business communication that just works. And it works for both parties. Which begs the questio: Why is this the exception, and not the rule?

How Search Engines Implement Auto-Correct

When you search the web these days, you will notice that most search engines automatically correct “mistakes” in your search terms: If you submit a search that resembles a more common word or spelling, the sites modify it accordingly.

This is helpful if you make an actual typo, but can get in the way when searching for a more exotic word or phrase. Therefore, the search engines not only notify you of any such correction; they also allow you to choose which of the two searches you actually would like to run.

To find out how Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google, and Yahoo implement this feature1, I searched for “ux desine,” which — not surprisingly — all of the sites changed to “ux design.”

Bing

The auto-correct notice appears below a few ads that are shown at the top of the results page. The notice is easy to spot, but it’d probably benefit from a bit more white space above and below it, so it stands out more.

The notice’s text is easy to understand: The displayed search results are based on both the original search term and the corrected one. By clicking either link in the notice, you can summon matches for only one of the two.

Browser window with Bing results page, displaying the notice 'Including results for ux design. Do you want results only for ux desine?' towards the bottom of the page. Both search terms are clickable.

But there’s a problem: For this specific search, the auto-correct notice still appears on-screen without any scrolling. If you look at the Yahoo example below, however, you can see that, at least on smaller laptop screens, ads at the top of a results page can potentially push the notice off the screen.

DuckDuckGo

In DuckDuckGo, the auto-correct notice is located at the very top of the page, so it’s easier to spot than its Bing counterpart. Its text is confusing, though.

The notice states, “Did you mean ux design?,” but the results on the page already contain that phrase. So, are the displayed results based on my original search term, or the auto-corrected one, or do they combine results for both?

Browser window with DuckDuckGo results page, displaying the notice 'Did you mean ux design?' at the top of the page. The search term is clickable.

Google

Google also displays the notice at the top of the page.

In contrast to DuckDuckGo, however, the text is unambiguous: The search is based only on the auto-corrected search term. If you would like to see results for your original term, you need to click a link in the notice.

I’m not sure why Google also makes the auto-corrected search term clickable, because, at this point, it is already displaying the results for it. Maybe its function is to place the auto-corrected text into the search field.

Browser window with Google results page, displaying the notice 'Showing results for ux design. Search instead for ux desine' at the top of the page. Both search terms are clickable.

Yahoo

Yahoo cooperates with Bing for search functionality. The auto-correct notice and its placement are similar between the two.

Unlike Bing, Yahoo’s ads push the auto-correct notice off the screen for the given search term. This makes the notice more difficult to spot compared to it being anchored to the top of the page.

Browser window with Yahoo results page, showing only ads, but no auto-correct notice at all.

The way that Yahoo marks ads exacerbates the problem: Instead of displaying a little “Ad” label next to each ad block, there’s a single line, “Ads related to ux design,” at the top of the page. When you scroll down on the page, and that line is moved off screen, it’s impossible to tell which links on the page are ads, and which are actual search results.

Note how this ad “warning” also includes the auto-corrected search term, whereas both the browser and Yahoo’s search field contain the original term. Unless you scroll down, you won’t see the explanation of why the two search terms differ, nor would you be able to tell what terms the search is based on.

Browser window with Yahoo results page, scrolled down a little bit. Now, the notice 'Including results for ux design. Search only for ux desine' is visible. Both search terms are clickable.

One web searcher’s opinion

Of these four approaches, Google’s easily is my favorite:

  • The auto-correct notification always appears at the top of the page, so I can instantly verify that the results actually match my intended search,

  • the notice’s text is unambiguous and easy to understand, and

  • I can also precisely search for either my original search term, or for the corrected version.

  1. According to Wikipedia, Bing, Google, and Yahoo! are the most popular search engines in the English-speaking world. DuckDuckGo seems to be the most popular non-user-tracking English-language search engine. That’s why I picked these four. ↩

The Struggle With Defective Train Doors

A car’s fuel gauge displays the fill level of the vehicle’s fuel tank. Although the two are closely associated, the gauge is mounted in the dashboard, far away from the tank.

The tank’s fill level is most relevant to the driver while operating the car, of course. And so it is displayed within the driver’s “use context,” instead of, say, being indicated on the fuel filler door.

More generally speaking, information must be displayed in the context within which it most relevant and most “findable” for the user.

I was reminded of this when I read the following story on Twitter about several people struggling with a defective door2.

So many “dumb” users — or are they?

6 dumb people with 2 baby strollers and plenty of suitcases are standing in front of a defective [train] door for one full hour. Although there are multiple out-of-order signs on the door, they only realize [that the door won’t open] after pressing the open button ten times. So one of them runs ahead to the next door and blocks it until everyone in that party has gotten off the train.

At the same time, three other people are standing outside the train, and one after the other, they push the open button five teams each, before they head to another door.

And surely, Deutsche Bahn will be to blame again.

Here is a photo of a similar door that’s also out-of-order. Note the location of the signs in the windows.3

Train door showing four out-of-order warnings placed in the door's windows.

When a user interface does not behave as expected, users often develop “UI tunnel vision:” instead of looking for helpful clues outside of the narrow context of the UI controls, they tend to focus on those controls even more.

This behavior is often exacerbated if users are nervous or in a rush. As a result, they can overlook a sign that is — literally — right in front of their nose.

Out of sight, out of mind

Look at the photo and imagine that you focus on the round, green open button. You will realize that it is perfectly possible to overlook the out-of-order notices on the door’s windows — especially when you are eager to get onboard, and there are people standing around you that are just as nervous to get on the train now.

I’ve committed that very “user error” myself.

When I arrived at my destination, I tried to open “my” door by moving its handle. Although the handle went through the full arc of operation, the door wouldn’t unlock. It took me a while to finally notice the “door-won’t-open” sign on the window and, thankfully, managed to find another exit just in time before the train was about to leave the station again.

Interestingly, other passengers were waiting with me at that same door.

None of us had noticed the out-of-order sign.

Display information in the relevant context

Deutsche Bahn has used this design for years now, but it obviously doesn’t work well.

What I would love Deutsche Bahn to user-test is this: Place at least a part of the warning signs right on top of the open buttons. Cover old-fashioned door handles in a cloth bag, and place the sign close to the handle.

This not only places the information right where users focus their view when trying to open a door. The signs also provide a tactile “hint” if they feature a rougher texture than the smooth plastic of the buttons or handles.

Of course, without actual testing, there is no telling whether this solution would work, either. Then again, instead of sticking with a design that is flawed, they should at least try to find a solution that makes their passengers’ experience that little bit less stressful.

  1. Translated into English from these German tweets: Tweet 1 — Tweet 2 — Tweet 3 — Tweet 4 ↩

  2. Image of the train doors is an excerpt from this photo by Armin Schwarz. Used with kind permission. ↩