Noel's story of that horrible IVR reminded me of an IVR usability study we ran a few years ago which actually made someone cry and made another user slam down the phone and say she couldn't take it anymore.
The test involved asking Walmart employees to call an IVR for a well known investment company and attempt to change the allocation of the mutual funds in their 401k. A few things to keep in mind in this crazy study: 1) Most employees that Walmart provided for the study were not aware that Walmart even provided them with a 401k and had no idea what a mutual fund is...nonetheless understand "reallocating their mutual funds" 2) The IVR was ridiculous. It confirmed everything three or four times for no reason making you start doubting your sanity. 3) At the beginning of the interaction, if you chose Path A, this process might take you 5 minutes. If you chose Path B, you feasibly could still complete the task but it would take you a minimum of half an hour. It turned out Path A and Path B did basically the same thing...Path B just did it in a convoluted crazy fashion. And, initially Path B presented itself as more appealing. 4) People using the IVR were presumably looking at a statement from the investment firm for the 401k. However, the IVR used language that did not match anything written on the statement resulting in mass confusion. ---- You can only imagine the madness that ensued in this study. Let's just say that the by the end the day the client couldn't watch the train wreck anymore. Although I am sure you can draw your own conclusions from this exercise, here are a few key points: - If your users is going to be looking at artifacts while using your IVR, review the artifacts and make sure you are using the exact same language - Be very clear about each path in the IVR and do not create strange meandering longcuts to entrap users - Although confirmations are good for natural language interfaces especially, do not overconfirm -- you offend your user's sanity. - When designing the system, keep in mind the knowledge level of your users and ask yourself if this is really an appropriate use of IVR for your target audience ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
