Shapes and Lines

…the man who buys it doesn’t use it, the man who uses it isn’t at all happy about it and would really appreciate it if the guys who build those automated form pages would actually try using the things they build.

You know the sort I’m talking about, the customer complaint and tech support form pages. Those perfect walls of anonymity and indifference that have taken the place of any real or tangible customer support for most businesses these days.

A week or so ago I spent the better part of my afternoon trying to purchase the update to a high end modeling program I use. It was a small update for the full version I bought about six months ago, and assumed it would be as easy at visiting their site and purchasing it like I had before.

To make a long story short and get to my actual point, three hours later I gave up in complete frustration and bewilderment. I was standing there, a returning customer with cash in hand, but due to lack of information on the web site, broken, buried, and obfuscated links, invalid support email addresses, and form responses that didn’t answer my question or point me in the right direction, I gave up.

Apparently I spent so much time on the site that I triggered a user feedback study that offered me the chance to “help improve the user experience”, so I opted in and went through the thirty or so questions. I expected I’d be contact after giving the site what I was sure was the lowest possible rating. But I was wrong.

I should say however that the study I opted in to was very nice indeed, and I would be happy to recommend it to others…

I reminded myself that I should try to be part of the solution, rather than just bitching about the problem. So I clicked the link to submit a report via their automated form.

After typing it out in an email as concisely as possible and spell checking it ..then editing out the more frustrated language, I tried to paste it into the form only to be greeted with an error message that I had “exceeded the allowed number of characters”, which was so woefully low I may as well have tweeted the damn thing to the company

God knows the 140 character limit of a tweet would’ve been more verbose.

Intermission and obligatory pic. this one is a follow up to my last posted image and a little bit cleaned in the execution I think.

A short time later while I was going totally Hulk and rampaging through my two peanut butter sandwich lunch, I received a form email response that was Identical to my previous ..and had nothing to do with my submitted report.

That is what I call a defining user experience. A mental bookmark that you revisit, consciously or unconsciously, every time the subject, in this case a particular software producer, is encountered. Sort of like the first time a little kid touches something hot, or you eat a whole box of Cap’n Crunch Peanut Butter Crunch Berries in one setting. It’s and experience you won’t soon forget it.

Today was another roller coaster ride with automated forms. This time it was one of the biggest game developers in the business, and I have to say that their form system was better than my previous experience, but sort of in the way a poke in the eye is better than stepping in a bear trap.

As a guy I use to work with like to say, “lower your expectations and everything will be kick@$$”. Which I suppose if fine if that’s what you’re going for, but I’d suggest “removing the suck” as an alternate approach.

-Todd
www.shapesandlines.com

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..on the big white phone.

Alternately titled “October Surprise”.

My coffee has the sharp tang of tomato paste, definitely not my preferred blend.

I was up until after 3 am last night thanks to an impressive bout of food poising ala the salmonella lunch special I had yesterday.

What made it so bad was that a few hours after lunch and shortly before I became aware of the evil brewing in my intestines, I added an obscenely large plate of pasta to the mix. In black powder enthusiast terms, this was the “wadding”.

While I was curled up on the tile next to the big white phone lamenting the loss of my tasty pasta dinner, It occurred to me that this was a classic example of bad timing.  If my meal had been delayed just twenty minutes, I would have realized I was sick, gotten it out of the way and then been able to enjoy my dinner …just once.

Timing is everything as the saying goes. Since this is more or less and artist and developers blog I’ll keep it in that context.

Being in the right place at the right time, or having the right idea or product at the right time is often as much luck as design. And that is certainly true for the macro and micro view of development and production.

But wait, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity” you say? Or maybe you lean toward “if it weren’t for bad luck I’d have not luck at all”.

Either way it’s certainly a factor.

I once had a studio director describe his game development approach to me as “slinging spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks”. While that makes great visual for my perpetually growling stomach, from a business development perspective, it makes about as much sense as Russian roulette. And when you are talking about millions of dollars in operating cost, not to mention the careers trajectories of the developers under your watch, it’s more a road map for disaster than a recipe for success. In my opinion.

I was gonna continue this with a more specific look at how I approach design and development, and how those practices apply to timing and being able to answer the door when opportunity knocks. But all this talk has my belly grumbling, so I’m gonna go eat.

Fell free to post you thoughts on the subject and maybe it will motivate me to finish this post.

I’ll leave you with a little different take on luck.

There was once a boy who came from a poor family in China. One day his horse ran away. The villagers all said “what unfortunate luck”. The boys father shook said, “Maybe good. Maybe bad.”

The next day, the boy went to find the missing horse and found a herd of wild horses and caught a strong steed to bring them back to the village. The villagers exclaimed, “Isn’t this wonderful luck”. The boys father again said, “Maybe good. Maybe bad.”

The next day the boy went to try to break in and tame the horse, but the horse bucked him and crippled his leg. The villagers all proclaimed what terrible luck is was. “Maybe good. Maybe bad.” said the boys father.

That same day the army marched through town taking all the able-bodied young men away to war…

Luck is like the weather here in Eugene, it changes every hour, so don’t bank on it holding.

Obligatory Pic, this is a new treatment on a sketch I did some time ago.

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