This morning I went to buy my season ticket for my daily commuter train to IBM, only to discover that they had installed a new ticket system. Now - there are benefits to the new system, I’m sure, like Chip ‘n’ Pin, but that wasn’t what struck me.

I don’t know if you’ve ever bought a ticket in Glasgow - up until recently they used these big machines which had what seemed like a couple of hundred buttons on them. But the ticket guys hands used to fly across the keys, and out would pop your ticket. This morning, it took about 10 minutes for the same process. Why? Well - I can’t say for sure what the exact details of the issue were, but ultimately it must come down to 1 thing: bad design.

I’ve talked before about bad design, and the DoET book, and I think that this is a big problem in technology these days. This presents a number of issues:

• It makes people feel stupid - they can’t work the new system. It’s new, so it must be easier, but they can’t work it…..
• Conversely, it makes them feel like new technology is bad, because it is more complicated. This is a continual issue with design of technology, and makes the number of early adopters decrease
• It promotes the existence of ‘experts’ within an office, whereas a well designed system should be fully usable by alls its users

While I’m talking about the station - I get really annoyed that they are running a PC in the corner of the ticket booth to display passenger information - basically a big, fullscreen graphic. And it’s running Windows, which seems to me to be a pointless waste of money.

Looking at the design of ‘everyday things’ is a gradual spiral to madness, but fascinating…..

mrBen