Real User Goals
or
Your Mother Wouldn’t Like It

I’d like it to be really simple, said the greying man at the coffee table to the earnest smiling thirty-something woman in the smart blue dress and matching contact lenses.

You know, plug it in, switch it on, press Play, switch it off, he continued, with an air of pleading, mixed with a feeling that he didn’t know much about art or computers, but he knew what he liked.

Hmm, said the market survey woman. But what if someone wants the machine to stand by or hibernate when they press the Power button? Or even to restart?

The man at the coffee table twitched nervously and looked at his nearly empty coffee cup. There were another 50 minutes to go in the survey interview, and he was out of his depth already. The bright young woman was smiling encouragingly and saying something.

Well, my video recorder, I mean my digital errm, my …

Your set-top box with built-in hard disk and online connection for video on demand, program guide and watch-again? suggested the market survey woman, soothingly.

The thin man at the coffee table coughed nervously and finished the last of his almost cold coffee.

Ahem, yes, he agreed, putting a brave face on it. The set-top box just goes yellow when I turn it off. It makes a whirring noise all the time even when it’s off. Once when I came down in the middle of the night …

It was in Standby Mode, finished the marketer hastily. And it wouldn’t like to be switched off completely. But the situation with computers is entirely different. This conversation wasn’t going the way she wanted. How was she going to get anything solid from this chap with his empty coffee cup?

Well, it needs to be simple, he was saying.

We’re working very hard to make it simple and clear, said the interviewer testily. The product has won a Clear Speech award and we used a household name cartoonist to illustrate the User Manual.

The interviewee wondered if he might ask for another cup of coffee, and whether it was worth trying to explain what the product should be like.

H’hm. It must be simple or my mother won’t be able to use it.

The woman in the designer dress from the seconds rail at Belinda’s Boutique reflected that she had a whole lot more of this interview to work through, and she had already mentally struck out nearly all the questions on the sheet.

Could we get your mother in to the test suite? she purred seductively, putting on her best customer relations smile.

Test suite, repeated the thin man in the very clean Country Casuals checked shirt and beige chinos with matching belt from the mail order catalogue. He had thought about the brushed pigskin all-terrain shoes with front and back scuff guards and breathable waterproof lining, but had decided against them.

No, I don’t think my mother would like a test suite. Images of men in mediaeval executioners’ masks with a room full of racks, chains, manacles and things covered in iron spikes came involuntarily to his mind.

Well, how can we find out what your mother would like? asked Marketing as patiently as she could manage. This approach certainly wasn’t in the interviewing and knowledge elicitation training pack.

You could go and see how she uses the machines in her kitchen, said survey subject number seventeen, helpfully. Now he was on firmer ground.

She never sets the clock on anything. Her microwave always flashes 0:00 because she turns it off at the mains when she has finished with it. The only program she ever uses on her washing machine is Standard Wash, even when she only has a couple of dishcloths to do. I tried showing her the Economy program and the Save Water button but she said she didn’t know if they would do a proper wash, and mightn’t they ruin the laundry? She always sets the fan oven to medium and she puts anything she wants cooked hotter on the top shelf of the oven. I tried explaining to her that the fan keeps all parts of the oven at the same temperature, but her nanny had explained to her when she was a girl that ovens were hotter at the top, so …

The designer dress was starting to feel quite tight under the arms, and she was uncomfortably aware that she was sweating. Perhaps it wouldn’t show if she kept her arms down.

And what would be the equivalent for our product? she murmured, mainly to herself.

My mother would like a big ON/OFF switch that lights up when it’s on, and goes out when it’s off, said Country Casuals helpfully. Otherwise she turns it off at the mains and then I have to spend half an hour resetting it.

The woman with the Business Administration and Marketing diploma reflected that she had quite a good degree, and could probably get a well-paid job in accountancy. Or she could become a solo round-the-world yachtswoman. Or join the British Antarctic Survey and spend months all by herself drilling deep holes in what was left of the world’s ice. Anything that didn’t involve listening to any more of this stuff.

And what about all the other functionality, she inquired drily, with whatever was left of her interviewing persona.

Functionality? said the thin man in the clean chinos, starting to quite enjoy himself. My mother doesn’t want any of that. As I said, if you just take all the buttons off the front of the box and give her a big Run button on the remote, she’ll be quite happy. It’ll be a big improvement on the current model.

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