Do You Like It?! — Quotidian — 431
(Transcript of video originally posted on 14 Nov 2022)
App Developer Raj:- Isn’t it AMMAAAZING??!
App Tester Raj:- It has to be amazing, is it??
App Developer Raj:- No, I mean, I just wanted to know if you liked it…
App Tester Raj:- What do you mean? I am supposed to like it, eh??
App Developer Raj:- … What do you feel?!
App Tester Raj:- Feel? Where on earth are you bringing those things from? Feelings? Are we watching a movie here, or what??
Namaste! Four Hundred and Thirty One! “Do you like it?” is the question. But, “Do you like it?” shouldn’t be the question. How to solicit user feedback, that is what we are going to talk about today.
What is User Experience? What is Usability? If you look for the definition, it would run something like this. “The extend to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specific goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use!” If we dwell in some more detail on the key words in this definition, first up, Users: Anybody can be a user, but who are you preparing this for… don’t try to please everybody, don’t try to build something that’ll be suitable for everybody, you’ll end up building something that’s not LOVED by anybody.. So, target specific users. Then, Goals: What are we trying to help them achieve? Are you going to tell them they can achieve ANYTHING THEY WANT with this? That won’t work! There should be some things your product won’t do. Only then, you can target it at some things it will do very well. Similarly, we have to be Effective: I spent this much time and this much money.. I couldn’t have done this well with any other tool. It should be effective. Easy. Understandable. Not causing any kind of difficulty for me in any form. Effective. Also, it should be Efficient: Minimising costs, minimising energy consumed, minimising the imprint, the carbon footprint perhaps, that is efficient. Finally, Satisfaction: It is pretty hard to measure it.. They also call it Delight. That complete satisfaction, fulfilment they call it. You can’t enquire and find out. You may not also be able to understand it by watching. Perhaps you have to do this by befriending and habituating only!
Google gifted us with a framework. A beautiful framework, and a beautiful acronym to go along with it too! Are you looking for feedback from the user? Use the HEART! What does this HEART stand for? First, H stands for Happiness. Are they just satisfied that they got the job done, or is there a hint of joy, a sense of delight, a blooming, a blossoming… Is there that little thing.. it has happened to me many times, am sure it has happened to you too.. You would be reading a book, and then, suddenly, you’d STEP OUT of the story and soliloquise.. “Wow, what a beautiful plot twist that was, by the author!” Have you had that experience?! Similarly, you may be eating something.. You will jump out of the dish that you are eating, and you would get into the mind of the person who cooked it.. That jump is probably a great indication of Happiness.. When you go, “This piece of software, wow, what a brainwave by Steve Jobs!”, that is Happiness. H. E stands for Engagement. What is Engagement? Once you start using it, you get immersed into it. You want to have a private conversation with that thing in front of you. Could be a product, could be a book, could be a movie, could be a dish you are eating, but… Engaged. I am not distracted. I am not doing ten things and this is the eleventh one. I am Engaged. A. A stands for Adoption. Okay.. This seems new. I was using something else till now. I will start using this from now on. This ALSO from now on. When you say that, you are adopting. You are probably changing some habits. And you are being inclusive. You invite this thing into your inner circle. That is A. Adoption. That leads us to R. R would be Retention. You took me in. You liked me so much that you let the older relationship go! You say “I don’t need you anymore because I have got something far better!” So, that would be Retention. And finally, here is something that is fundamental to all these others, is Task Success. Why did you come here? To achieve something. To get something done. Are you able to complete it 100%? Or, did you need something else? Or did you find something lacking? That is Task Success. You came here to do something. Are you able to achieve that one hundred percent successfully? HEART.
This lady, her name is Abby Covert. She has written a book. Two books actually. The first one is called “How to make sense of any mess”. What a name, eh?! But, hey.. when talking about appropriateness of names, what a name.. “Covert”.. See the meaning of that word. A usability expert, a user experience specialist, an information architect, .. would such a person name themselves COVERT?? Anyway…
If you go to the fifth chapter of this book, it talks about getting user feedback and gives you eighteen, EIGHTEEN, different ways you have to be alert and aware to receive proper user feedback! You please spend some time, the book is free, available online, .. but I would like to underline just three of them which were.. kinda interesting! The first one is Murk. She says, “You built this product or cooked this dish or wrote this book or whatever for something.. To achieve some end goal. Are users confused, about what else it can do? They call it Ekagra Chinthana. Focused on just one thing. Instead of that, hinting at capability in other domains too, is there a sense of murkiness to your offering? Check that!” The other thing she highlights is Competition. Are there many others doing the same thing the same way just like you? That would lead to murkiness too. “Why should I use this product? The same thing is possible with that other product too..” If Yahoo and Google were similar directories, Google wouldn’t have become famous. When there were forty other search engines doing the same thing, listing stuff as directories, along came Google, showed nothing on screen, just a box asking you “Are you feeling lucky?”.. That… is differentiation! That differentiation is important. So, look at what competition does. And, another interesting thing she says is Backlash. You claim your product lets people do something. Do they make a mistake with your product? Some accident, some unexpected screwups, what kind of things can go wrong? Because your product is not easily understandable, because your users are… idiots.. But, still, is your product accident-proof? Without complaints, without backlash? Check that! Interesting! She has listed eighteen such items. Go, check them out! But, I am going to take you elsewhere.. When we talk about Feedback, when we talk about listening to our users, and about helping them, … we can go to the animal kingdom itself!
Most birds, when they feed their chicks, they regurgitate the food.. The stuff that they ate just a while ago, half-digested, they bring it back as a friendlier goo and offer it to the chicks. Pampering! That’s how the bird first tastes food!
Have you seen mothers offer bottle-milk to the baby? They sprinkle a few drops of the milk on to the inside of their wrists! I asked my sister about it.. Why on earth did she do it!? That’s when she explained it to me… If it is too hot, the child won’t be able to express it in words, it would just cry, … what if it scalded the tongue, the tender lips..? So, this is probably the only place in MY body which is closest in sensitivity to the baby’s tender skin! Wow! We have read about Dogfooding, and this is like the next level of Dogfooding!
Do you remember this story in The Ramayana? Shabari.. That old lady offers berries to Lord Rama. On his way into the jungle, … berries from the old lady. But, she doesn’t just offer a bunch to the Lord. She picks the best ones, the ones without worms, the ones that are, ripe, perfect, and how? She bites into them, tests them, tastes them, finalises, decides, and only then offers! Next level “taking care of the user”.. Don’t you agree?!
Onam is a festival. A big deal in Kerala. Mahabali reappears from underground. Connected with the Vamana Avatar. And, every year that he reappears, they celebrate his arrival, they worship him, it is a Harvest Festival of sorts. And, one of the highlights of the festival is Onam Sadhya. The big feast! Amazing feast! You can zoom in and look at the details of every dish out here. This is exactly how the traditional South Indian plantain leaf lunch is served. At my home too! My Grandma had very specific advice to my mom about what the woman should do when serving such a lunch. And, what was that? Watch and Learn.
You cooked this stuff? You think your work is done with that? Nope! Go, serve it! And, after serving, watch! Watch from the kitchen doorway. See what He likes! See what He needs more of! See what He avoids eating… See what He tastes and crinkles up his eyebrows and turns up His nose because He doesn’t like the taste.. Because these are powerful indicators for what worked out for you today in the kitchen! Watch, and Learn! And then, my Grandma would tell us the advice that she received from HER mother! You know what my Great Grandma told my Grandma?! Eat in the same plate! That is, the Husband will eat something in a plate, a silver plate, and this Grandma lady has to wait for Him to finish so that the same plate can be used, it seems. Why? She can immediately get feedback about what the Man didn’t like.. What the Man left half-eaten..! Feedback, apparently! User.. Customer.. Feedback! Watch.. and Learn!
But, we go to Jeyamohan. He gives a beautiful twist. In the fourteenth book of The Mahabharata. We have often returned to this fount of wisdom. The same series of books. The fourteenth book is the one that talks about the one-year incognito time. When the Pancha Pandavas don’t move around the Pancha Pandavas.. They don different names, roles, attire, and merge into the crowd in the kingdom. During that time, Arjuna is a dance teacher… Bhima? Is in the kitchen. He is a master-chef.
At this time, when Bhima is in the kitchen, they are narrated the story of Nala and Damayanthi. A famous king and his beautiful and powerful queen. They have similar backgrounds, both are amazing cooks. They cook so well!
In fact, Nala wrote a full book it seems.. That book is named Paaka Darpana. Nala Paakam, they often say. Darpana is mirror. An old man is talking to Bhima, who has just finished cooking. And, as Bhima is about to go serve the food, the old man stays his hand and says, “The tradition is different here. The ones who serve are different from the ones who cook. That those who cook shouldn’t serve too, is one of the precepts laid down by King Nala!”. And, Bhima immediately asks back, “Why so?!” Look at the answers!
“The guy who has finished cooking would be feeling top of the world. He has done it. He has achieved it. He has… he has performed chemical magic! The person who is eating need not feel the same. He may be hungry. He may NOT be hungry. They may have various backgrounds, and hence their tastes, their appreciations will vary. Won’t they?! Each a different type, at every moment a different quality. Changing all the time. And so, it is possible that the person who cooked might get angry at the person who is eating.. He might end up thinking that all the effort that he had put in the cooking is going unrecognised.. The place one keeps a certain dish on the leaf, the sequence in which they eat the dishes, … may all become trigger points for the cook to fulminate! The person who cooked should not watch the terror and the horror that is happening on the plantain leaf. Each person may eat it in a different style! Leave it to them! You may be justified in that anger but that doesn’t mean you can do this when serving. You should do it with a smiling face always!”
There is one more reason, the old man tells Bhima. And that is… “Nothing is a one man job. It is a teamwork. You may have cooked something, something else may have been cooked by somebody else, but when you are serving, without consciously realising it, you may add a little more of what you did, hoping they would give feedback… “Do you like this dish?! Shall I serve you one more Mysurpa!” That is not good manners either! The person who is a specialist server, he is going to treat all dishes equally.. all dishes as if he cooked each and every one of them! And that is how it SHOULD be served! Basically, a great case for having a separate tester in every team! A separate usability engineer in every team! If the developer herself does the usability testing, if the designer herself plans the user experience, … it would end up like Bhima’s story! Beware!
By the way, talking about the bird and regurgitation, I was reminded of this too..! There are two words in English — one is PAMPER. Go ahead, please pamper. Shower love and affection. Treat them as kings and queens. Go the extra mile for your customers. Praise them. Take care of them. No problem. Please do that! But, there is another word in English — Don’t PANDER. Pander is to gratify or indulge an immoral or distasteful desire! Whatever base, low level, cheap, vulgar desires are asked of you, to go ahead and fulfil them! Never do that. Watch this video a friend shared with me on Whatsapp. Pandering to the chick again and again, see what the mother-bird has wrought! See what the chick does! “It is enough to just stand next to it, the food will automatically come into the mouth!”, the chick seems to think! “All I need to do is to open my mouth wide!”.. It hasn’t learned the ways of the world! Don’t do that to your users.. They call it tough love! We will address this in one of our future episodes. Tough love is what you need to practise! Thank you! We will meet again soon!
