So after reading Robert and Pankaj's examples, now i understand what
*that* thread was about :-) Seems the title should be "Designing
against competing priorities", not about making something "too easy".
I had to deal with this at Adobe (this was post-Andrei ;-) on what's
commonly regarded as the most annoying software experience known to
humanity: the installation and activation of Creative Suite :-)
(the only thing worse apparently is installing Oracle DB, which
literally can run 7 hours from what I heard)
(and before y'all flame me for your CS install problems, hey i
didn't invent it, i just tried to improve it post-macromedia merger,
working with a few vendors too)
1. I was strongly encouraged not have the "activation help" links and
information be too prominent. Yes annoying but various call center and
technical issues in the way (like the link might change URL, etc.)
2. You know that Registration screen that comes up after you finally
finish installing and activating and you just wanna hit "skip this"
and have a shot of tequila? Had a big struggle with Adobe marketing
over exposing a "never register" button. They wanted to drive up
registrations (fair business concern, gotta get customer data, upsell
channel, etc.) so they initially had "never register" option buried in
a hard-to-find dropdown menu, while having a nice prominent Register
button. A bit deceptive too, at first glance users think they must
register. So we finally had a compromise of after the Reg screen being
dismissed with a "register later" button three times, then the "never
register" button is exposed nicely. (At least that was when I left it,
I think the final shipped implementation in CS3 was a bit different)
Maybe one day, perhaps after CS4 is out, I'll write about that whole
experience. Very enlightening...All the issues of the last few threads
are encapsulated into that, and then some.
Either way, comes back to my earlier point that designing anything
requires compromise and balancing competing biz/tech/mkting, etc.
That's the deal as a designer :-)
Uday Gajendar
Sr. Interaction Designer
Voice Technology Group
Cisco | San Jose
------------------------------
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
+1 408 902 2137
On May 7, 2008, at 4:37 AM, mark schraad wrote:
Robert could you please keep your threads straight. This clearly
should be under the heading 'can we make it to easy'. ;)
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