NathanBowers.com

60 Minutes aired an excellent segment on how poorly designed gadgets drive the technical support industry.

The highlights include usability guru Don Norman talking about “feature creep” and some choice quotes from Geek Squad founder Robert Stephens:

“That was my business plan, be nice and fix it.”

“We’ve saved more MBA dissertations than anyone.”

“Geeks have no interest in power. Geeks may inherit the earth but they have no desire to rule it.”

Statistic: more than 1/3 of wireless routers are returned because they’re too complicated.

A few years ago I would have been shocked to see prime time coverage of something geeky like usability, but a few things have changed recently.

• Apple has raised the bar on hardware design, software usability, and product integration. Score one for the good guys.
• HDtv is now ubiquitious, but it’s also infuriatingly difficult. Do I get HD-DVD or BluRay? I have to pay even more for cable service? HDMI or component cables? Whoa! those cables are expensive! How do I hook up my Wii, cable box, Playstation, DVD player, and audio system? What are those black bars, and why is the picture stretched? Shouldn’t the TV just know when I’m watching HD? Why isn’t the only football game I care about on one of my 1024 channels? Arghhhhhhh!!!!
• The number of interconnected gadgets in most households has increased exponentially. Each family needs a broadband modem, a Wi-Fi router, and a printer. Each member of a family has a cell phone or two, a camera, an iPod, a computer (and maybe an additional work laptop), an HDtv setup (with all the obligatory TiVos, DVD players, console game systems, cable boxes, media disks, speakers, and remote controls), and it’s all held together by an unholy mish-mash of coax, HDMI, analog cables, USB, crappy software, Wi-Fi, and duct tape.
• Oh, and let’s not forget all the things that can go wrong with Digital Rights Management, malware, DRM bundled with malware, and good old fashioned toddlers with sticky fingers.