Interface Fail - Kohl's Kiosk

Kohl's Touch Screen Kiosk

While escorting my wife around our local Kohl's and waiting for her to return from Customer Service, I approached a big touch based kiosk to help customer find products in the store, similar to other retailers I'm sure. Everything was running smoothly until I pulled up a large list of products, at which point I noticed a scroll bar, which put me in enough of a mood to snap this picture.

Scroll Bars Have No Place In Touch Interfaces. Period
Of course anyone with the slightest amount of programming experience will understand why we see scroll bars on touch interfaces. Laziness. The program was made with computers, and specifically a mouse in mind, a (legacy?) pixel perfect interface device.
If you step back and see what's going on you will notice that a sizable part of the results are HIDDEN from the consumer which adds a roadblock to a sale. Next you will notice that the down arrow is a relatively small target to tap with your finger, which again adds a roadblock to a sale. All of this is even more frustrating when you have several pages of results returned compounding the amount of tapping required. If you do the math you come up with a figure that stopped me dead in my track before I really wanted to, maybe even preventing a sale.

What To Do?
There are many examples of touch interfaces that are nearly transparent. Here is a MIT students thoughts about Red Box: http://web.mit.edu/2.744/www/Results/studentSubmissions/humanUseAnalysis/rljacobs/assessment.html
The student nails some key points, large buttons (easy targets to hit,) consistent themes (no on the fly relearning needed,) and prominent pictures of the products (our brains are plumed for visual processing.) All of these add up to a transparent interface, one that doesn't distract the user from their task. Why does it seem that kids can swipe/unlock a phone faster than they can tie a shoe? Well do shoes come with LCD's, big buttons, and pretty graphics....wait don't answer that, shoe are expensive enough.

Implications For The Future
Imagine this scenario for laughs: A brilliant programmer comes up with an amazing program (not Watson so don't ask IBM) that responds to natural voice commands. Proud of his work he packages it up and begins demoing it to customers. On the first run a customer asks a complex question (treating the program like search engine because that is how the customer is used to communicating with computers) and the program returns the results verbally. After the 10th result the computer stops, "is that all it found?" the customer asked, "well...you have to say a command for it to return the next....um...page of results..." the programmer mutters, understanding the obtuse nature of his explanation.

You Have Point?
How do "pages" fit into a verbal world exactly? They don't, they are a legacy of old limitations on processing power and screen space. My point is, even really really smart people can't initially think outside their comfort zone. And not just really smart programmers, customers/consumers/users need to think outside their comfort zone too. Does that mean we have to suffer with poor interfaces. No. It means we all have to learn, and keep on learning.

The last James Cameron film?

Yes I saw Avatar (in 3D no less) fully expecting this to be the last film from this (in)famous director. 400+ million is a lot to spend during a great recession after all. Plus after watching the silly previews, I determined there was no hope for this film and I forbid myself from watching it and watching it in 3D especially. Far too many times I have watched 3D movies shamelessly pointing fingers, knifes, swords, (insert long pointy object) directly into my eyeballs forcing them to roll uncontrollably.

3D as Mainstream, yes it can happen.

Then one night after watching an Avatar segment on the Nightly News with the missed Charley Gibson, I had hope once again. The director promised to treat 3D (and CGI) as a tool. Something like a camera, microphone and acting before CGI fixed that with the Star Wars series. Maybe, just maybe then, the story will be the only thing that is bad. And after years of conditioning I have built up a tolerance to bad movies. I may even be able to watch Playing God (IMDB it) with out walking out this time. Surely I can watch a silly movie about bolts vs bullets.

Can we get to the movie?

So yes. I planned, waited, paid (well my wife paid) and watched. Even from the awkward position from the front row (the place was sold out) the movie was fantastic. The story yes was tired, and very predictable, but that just freed up your brain to process more of the visuals. And the 3D was as promised, seamless, but beyond that the general level of detail given to old fashion CGI was relaxing. Try watching any SyFy movie, and saying the same thing. To give you a taste, the opening scene has you zooming in on a realistic space "ship" more akin to a flying ISS. The ship is amazingly detailed, even with my eyes wide open I had trouble absorbing all the detail, which right off the bat had me plotting a return trip to the theater (a Cameron calling card.) After all that, you even get an ending, and not just a black screen, but a real ending (I'm looking at you District 9) that you can leave with an not have to talk about sequels. The movie was long, but in my honest opinion you can't really tell a story in less time, besides you get more bang for your buck.

And on that last note, this movie, even with its high price tag to make and to view, was a bargain for consumers.

Hope you see it....yes in 3D!

Death Race aint that bad...

Okay so not the most poetic title. But if you have seen the movie then you know it fits well. When I first watched it I wasn't impressed. And to be sure I shouldn't be impressed. The movie is terrible and predictable as get out. However I have to say that the production value was amazing. The cars are realistic (a relative realization if you will) and the camera work is spot on and almost artistic. The violence and blood is relentless and with the excellent sound FX combines to make you squirm when you watch it for the first time.

It's one of those movies that makes you watch it again where you would initially may have wanted to eat (Insert Object Label) and hold it in till your gut turns inside out.

I also include Peacemaker in this sub-set of movies....





Waterworld too...