June 9, 2005
I hate this thing we have in the lobby of my building. It is a directory and its a computer with a flat touch screen, so it MUST be cooool. Wrong. Ok the product itself has potential, but not really. It needs a 15 minute reality check with a decent usability team (http://www.dylangreene.com). Ok here it is (actually this is from the companies web sight http://www.touchsource.com/ but who cares)
Ok so great its got lists of companies and people and the building management, cool. Ok so lets try and use it. Touch "List of Companies", it doesn't. Instead it shows me a new touch screen with the alphabet and a "0-9" button. So to find what companies are in the building you have to know what letter their name starts with. Bummer, I wanted to see who was in our building. Ok so I have to hunt and peck to find out, so I start touching letters. Figure since I don't know where to start I will just run through the alphabet a-z and then 0-9. Touching "A" takes me to the list of A companies in the build... none. And to add insult to injury I have to hit "Start Over", go back to the beginning, hit "List of Companies" again, touch B... nothing. Repeat for C... nada. Bitch! I am getting tired of this already. Nothing until G. G. One damn company under G. Ok so 27 lists later (a through z plus one numeric) I have 5 f-ing companies, 5! Two of those started with S, so only 4 of the 27 panels even had data to show... WTF. Ok so that sucked, but at least we can find people on this bad boy, so I figure don't get burned twice, start with me, that way I know the data is there... Wrong. Touch "List of Individuals" go A through Z not one listing. And why the hell do they have a "0-9" button on the people listing. Are there a lot of people name 4 out there I do not know about? So we still have "Leasing & Property" to go and these are the people paying for this puppy so lets check it out. One panel with a single name with address and phone number. That is it. 55 panels accessible though a touch screen interface with complicated hierarchies and no back buttons (no all, no listing by floor, no listing by company type [i.e. software], no... ) and a grand total of 6 pieces of information. That's it, six names. A single panel could have listed them all. Hell a decently framed printout generated by the property management company would have served me better. Sh*t, signs have been filling this important function for hundreds of years, thank God someone fixed it. I mean were would I have been if I only had a sign to guide me. I would be 20 minutes younger and less pissed off, that's what I would be. Thanks for nothing.