Can bad UX lead to outcomes that affect human life?
This week Chloe & Sal attended the “Ladies that UX event” in Manchester. We discussed many topics but one particular topic caught our attention!
We all know that bad customer experience leads to profit loss, frustrated users and endless business problems but what about injuries or even death?
In this post, we will talk about some of the topics that were spoken about during the talk by @badbad_ux
- Confusing Gear Shifter results in injuries and death.
- Sat Nav’s & Driving off cliffs.
- Apple Watch saves lives.
Confusing Gear Shifter results in injuries and death.
(Monostable gear shifter used by a number of Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep vehicles)
Over 100 crashes and multiple injuries and even one death due to bad design and lack of testing. The Gear shifter “appears to violate several basic design guidelines for vehicle controls” The gear shifter returns to the middle position after each selection. It doesn’t feature a park button either which is resulting in users existing their car while leaving it in drive.
Takeaway? Always test your product multiple times and in various scenarios.
Sat Nav’s & Driving off cliffs.
A driver who was accordingly following his sat nav found himself down a 100ft drop, he said “I was only following satnav orders” It led him up a lane clearly unsuitable for motor vehicles.
‘I was using the satnav properly but users should be made more aware they should only use them as a guide”
Should it be the user that needs to be cautious or the faulty TomTom satellite-navigation system?
Apple Watch saves lives
It’s not all doom and gloom, Apple are a good example of how design and testing can be used to help and even save lives!
A unique feature that has been implemented into the apple watch is the fall detect feature. After noticing a lot of their users took up extreme sports, Apple ensured this feature would come in handy. Just like it did for a man who fell off his bike with a head injury, it detected the fall and called emergency services and also provided them with his location.
We would like to say a big thank you to @badbad_ux and @ladiesthatux we gained some interesting insights and examples.
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