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In search of simplicity

I just want to change the channel . . .

Complexity of must-have gadgets leaves consumers in the dark

By DAVE GUSSOW
Published February 28, 2005

[Times illustration: Don Morris]

	Join the tech horror club Technology would be simpler, if it didn't take 12 steps to set up a DVD recorder to save a program.

Louis Bloomfield uses everyday objects to teach physics, trying to show practical applications to reach people with minimal interest in science.

TV sets won't be part of his new textbook.

"It's moving so fast it doesn't serve my purpose in trying to teach physics," said Bloomfield, a professor at the University of Virginia whose course is called How Things Work.

Bloomfield believes it's possible to explain virtually anything and make it understandable to almost anyone. But while the basics of physics have remained the same for years, technology seems to change overnight.

"I wonder whether it's possible to make this stuff simple," Bloomfield said. "I always feel like scientists ought to be able to explain what they're doing."

So what, exactly, makes technology so hard? Is it the jargon? Is it gadgets that have more and more functions crammed into them? Is it the sheer volume of gadgets hitting the market? Is it trying to get once standalone gadgets to work together as a system? Is it consumers who don't understand the science behind the technology? Or the electronics industry that doesn't understand consumers?

"It's a really complicated answer," said Donald Norman, co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group in Fremont, Calif., and a usability expert. "It's remarkably difficult to make things simple, in part because we want so much from these things."

First, nostalgia is out.

"People tell me stories about the good old days when it was simpler," Norman said. "One, it wasn't as simple, and they asked a lot less of their technology."

For example, the television used to have a handful of channels and over-the-air reception was common. But change the station, and viewers likely had to adjust the rabbit ear antennas and the color on early sets.

And viewers didn't have anything connected to their sets. There were no VCRs, set-top boxes, DVD players and home theater systems. All of that adds complexity, Norman says, as does the current market with plasma, LCD and other choices.

"All this jargon, it's counterproductive and it makes buyers hesitant to buy because they fear doing the wrong thing," he said.

A few years ago, Norman installed his first home theater setup, which led to a blistering essay on his Web site.

"Each individual piece of equipment is reasonable: some are even well designed from a usability point of view," Norman wrote. "But when you combine them into a system, the result is chaos. This is a system problem and it can only be solved by a systems approach."

The second time was a lot easier, Norman says, because he could afford to pay someone to install the system.

Complexity can go beyond big-ticket items. Take a light bulb. Screw it in, flip a switch and let there be light. But what if the customer wants an additional switch to turn it on? "Up" doesn't necessarily mean "on" anymore, Norman says. And what if you want a three-way light or a dimmer? What if you want to control it so the lights come on just before you unlock the door? Suddenly, it's not so simple.

The original Palm Pilot organizer had a few buttons and functions: address book, calendar and a rudimentary handwriting recognition program to take notes. Compare that to the current Treo 650 cell phone, which includes an organizer, a keyboard, Internet access, e-mail, MP3 digital music player, digital camera and a color screen.

"A lot of this sneaks up because no one is content having something really simple," Norman said.

Ten years ago, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates proclaimed Windows 95 as a breakthrough in ease of use for PCs. In 1998, the computer industry created the Ease of Use/PC Quality Roundtable to try to overcome consumer fears about complexity.

Two years ago, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina promised to make gadgets easier to use. This year, a number of consumer electronics companies have said they need to make their products simpler.

"Bill Gates hardly understands normal people," Norman said. "That's true of most technologists."

The companies' promises are a relatively recent phenomenon, says Paul Saffo, director of the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park, Calif. The industry didn't get serious about the "human factor" in computer and interface design until the late 1980s.

"If you look at what has traditionally happened in (Silicon Valley), mostly with software, some hardware, the companies that have succeeded are the ones that put flawed products out first and then worked furiously to revise them in the marketplace," Saffo said.

It begs the chicken-and-egg question: Do manufacturers put more functions into devices because they can? Or do consumers want it?

"Consumers are kind of unwitting accomplices in making their lives more complicated," Saffo said. "Consumers demand choice but they're overwhelmed. And eventually they get crabby."

A case in point, Saffo says, is Windows winning out over Macintosh in the computer market. The Mac won the ease-of-use battle, but did not have the vast array of choices available for Windows.

"Everybody bought Windows because they wanted those extra features," Saffo said, "even though it was and remains a demonstrably inferior product."

The electronics industry speaks its own language and expects others to pick it up. And some things just rub people the wrong way.

One of the industry's favorite words in recent years has been to make gadgets "intuitive," meaning anyone can sit down and use something without guidance. But intuitive doesn't work for Donna Sword.

"Self-explanatory may be better," said Sword, a regional adviser for the Association of Personal Computer User Groups who lives in Las Vegas. "There should be some level of obvious at a base level. You should know how the plugs go together, how to turn it on and how to get started."

Sword proposes that electronics companies produce 10- to 20-page primers for new customers. And after they're written, she said, someone editing them should not take the attitude of "everybody knows that" and delete essential material.

The industry makes a mistake assuming people have a certain level of expertise, Sword says. People don't automatically know how to get into Safe Mode for Windows trouble-shooting, for example. When error messages say to hit any key to continue, some people look for a key tagged with the word "any."

And, please, don't call people "dummies" if they don't know how to use something.

"If you don't know stuff, you don't know stuff," University of Virginia's Bloomfield said. "You shouldn't call yourself a dummy if you're not interested in something."

People can't just look at a gadget and automatically understand how it works. And that, says David Macauley, is part of the problem.

"It's getting harder and harder to explain visually how these things work," said Macauley, author of The Way Things Work and The New Way Things Work. "Yet it's the one form of communications that people rely on."

Put a slice of bread in a toaster and press a lever. The coils heat up and the toast pops out when it's done. People understand that because they can see it, says Macauley, who is doing a book explaining how the human body works.

The electronics industry compounds the problems of the gadgets' complexity with manuals that are impossible to use, Macauley says.

"When reading the manual becomes an act of necessity, you know there's a problem," Macauley said. "We don't want to sit there and read the manual. This is technology that's supposed to make life simpler."

And, Bloomfield says, it is just harder to get inside gadgets to see how they work.

"You used to be able to tinker with a car. You could build a radio," he said. "Now it all comes in a box. It comes in one of these plastic containers you can barely get into."

Combine that with a lack of knowledge about science, Bloomfield says, and it makes it more difficult not only to figure out how something works, but to understand why something isn't working.

"Every problem you encounter is a new one," he said. "You have to find a guru. You have to flip through a Web page until someone spoon-feeds you how to do this."

As Saffo notes, being first in the market often trumps usability. But he and others believe the industry is beginning to understand consumer needs.

"Before you do a good design, you have to understand how it's going to be used," Saffo said. "The nature of new technology is that consumers are going to put it to uses that you never anticipated. It's got to be flexible enough to be used in unexpected ways."

Consumers can vote with their wallets, but often they get caught up in the hype and the urge to be the first on their block with the latest and greatest. That doesn't work with everything. The old Apple Newton was a handheld organizer before its time in the 1990s, mocked for its shortcomings. Yet a few years later, Palm organizers became a hot commodity.

Norman suggests consumers could ask for less in the devices, which is unlikely. Or they could opt for what he calls "trailing edge technology." Instead of rushing out to buy new technology, waiting a while for the bugs to be worked out and reliability to kick in might be a wiser course.

"Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, (companies) build things they can build," Norman said. "Notice I didn't say things people need."

- Times news researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this report. Dave Gussow can be reached at gussow@sptimes.com or 727 771-4328.

Association of Personal Computer User Groups: www.apcug.net

Ease of Use/PC Quality Roundtable: www.eouroundtable.com/

Institute for the Future: www.iftf.org/

[Last modified April 12, 2005, 10:44:41]