Just Like Theater

UX is all about the User.

Theater is about the audience.

In both cases, its about what is designed and how it is perceived.  And the perceptions only get measured rarely and inconsistently.

At least in software, it's a measure that is beginning to count.

MicroAttitudes

Any performance/presentation can be broken down by POV & MicroAttitudes:

1) What you intend to convey
2)The WORDS, text, images, events that literally get presented
3)The Microattitudes that underlie every moment, including intonations, jokes, facial expressions, etc
4) The interaction between the presenter & audience which evolves the performance
5)What the audience perceives moment to moment
6) What the audience actually REMEMBERS at the end of the night
7) What the audience members take away & REMEMBER about the night going forward into the future

The MicroAttitudes are probably the biggest takeaway of all of the above.

The worst way to prescribe drugs

A double drop down.

Just to encourage mistakes.

Not that anyone's life is on the line.  Or everyone's.

UX & Design of Grand Central (Chalkboard)

There are a lot of surprising & hidden gems within Grand Central Terminal.

I've been noticing a few, especially in the context of UX and Design.

My favorite relic: the chalkboard track announcement board. Hidden & now on display in GC's quietest area, The Biltmore Room.

Highway Stop Novelty Game

I was stopped in West Haven and saw this:

"Super Star" Game.

For $1, you get a chance to try for "high value" items.

An expensive purse, headphones and an iPad Air (?!?!?!)

Simply press the button and let go when you are ready!

If you win, the arrow lands on a number.

If you use a Credit Card, you get 5 chances for $5. On other games, there are 7 chances for $5 if you pay by cash.

$198 Michael Kors purse.

IPad Air.

Now, assuming these are genuine articles, there is a glaring question. WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? 

I admit, I played 2 games to test it out, to see if it was especially hard or rigged or something. I had to leave because of time, but was convinced that I could have gotten an iPad within a few more tries. Even if it took 20 or 30 tries, economically, it would have been worth it.

But there was little to no skill involved. The arrow is directly connected to the button with no apparent lag in the mechanism. 

This was in the same collonnade as 2 other machines with GRABBERS. Those had $30 baseball hats and stuffed animals.

Is the perception supposed to be that the game is easy enough for a player to win with skill or persistence? If I had spent $5, I'm convinced I could have matched the arrow. Or is that just the intended illusion of perception? How can it be that easy and why?

Paths of Desire-Wires

I was sitting at a Conference table when I saw this in front of me.

In case you can't see it clearly, there is a built in phone/power jack built into the center of the table. There is a metallic flap to both cover & protect the connections, and to reduce the visual clutter in the surface of the table.

However, the phone line has been CUT to accommodate the placement of the phone on the table.  Also, a surge protector with additional outlets has been plugged in. Presumably because there were not enough or they were not easily accessible for placement. The chord does not allow the plate to close properly.

The phone line and the chord must be bent properly and do not easily fit into the gap of the plate.  In fact, the plate encourages more damage to both.

Better design required, perhaps?

Giant Corporations like Big Ships

Giant corporations are often compared to giant ships, difficult to steer & even harder to change course quickly.

For instance, old telephony & new telephony are competing. The first needs to prove the worth of their old technology (wired lines), while the new can jump ahead and offer many new digital features without having the costs of infrastructure to deal with.

As far as the audience/customer is concerned, they just need their service to work. They don't care why things don't work, or about the layers of difficulty you have to deal with to fix it.