I recently attended a special CHI Atlanta event regarding a relaunch of a major news website. It was very interesting to hear how they engaged users throughout the entire redesign process; they utilized surveys, qualitative interviews, and iterative usability testing.

They mentioned that they engaged an agency to help them with the overall redesign direction and user personas. Why did they choose this particular agency? According to the company’s Director of User Experience and Site Integration, they chose the agency whose “powerpoints sucked.” Many agencies presented them with snazzy powerpoints and lots of “swag.” She joked that she had drawers full of this swag, such as an entire booklet full of words that represented their brand. The agency they chose simply presented them with a non-flashy presentation and then sat down with them for what ended up being a “good conversation”.

Whats the moral of this story? “Know your audience”, a phrase commonly tossed around by user experience architects, holds just as true for sales professionals. Some clients are interested in the sizzle and others are interested in the steak. So, it’s always good to engage your client in a dialogue and get a good idea of their expectations before offering them unique services or solutions.

How often have you gone to the store for a quick purchase that ends up taking hours due to so many options? Finally a book which speaks to something that seems to be so true: More options – an excess of choice – is not always a good thing! Everything was easier back when we had fewer things to choose from. The author, Barry Schwartz, speaks about the over-abundance of choice in Schwartz’s talk at Google or in this shorter TED Talk.

The gist of the message is this: We have always been under the impression that it is better to have more choice since it gives us more freedom, which in turn gives us more happiness. In reality, choices tend to inundate us with so much information that it can be overwhelming and detrimental.

“There’s no question that some choice is better than none. But it doesn’t follow from that that more choice is better than some choice.” Some of the examples he gives are:

1. Shopping: There are at least 75 bottles of salad dressing in the supermarket at a given moment. Do we really need so many?

2. Healthcare: Every ailment now has multiple numbers of treatments. Drugs are now being marketed directly to us because we are now consumers of our own healthcare.

3. To Work or Not to Work: Modern technologies (laptops, PDA’s, blackberries) allow us to work at anytime, anywhere. This causes us to always have to choose whether or not to work.

Obviously, choice is a wonderful thing. But at a certain point choice can actually be a hindrance. People agree that there are too many choices in every category of consumer good – from clothes to washing machines. According to Schwartz, “People have more decisions to make than it is worth their time and trouble to be making.”

Too much choice can have detrimental effects:

• Choice can lead to paralysis – too many choices cause you to actually choose NONE!
• Overabundance of choice can cause you to make the wrong decisions since you end up selecting based upon one parameter (i.e. looks) over a more meaningful parameter (i.e., quality). How many of us have selected a sub-par bottle of wine due to its snazzy label?
• Choice can lead to regret. If something isn’t perfect, it is easy to imagine that an alternative would have been better. Regret reduces the satisfaction you get from good choices. Anticipated regret prevents you from making choices at all – you are so sure you are going to make the wrong choice that you don’t make any choice.
• We evaluate our experiences based upon what we expect them to be. More options raises our expectations – causing us to expect perfection. These high expectations ultimately lead us to less satisfaction with results, even if they are good results.
• The longer we mull over a decision, the more we comprehend the pros and cons to every option. This knowledge makes us more likely to suffer from our choice after it has been made.

So what does this mean for creators of interactive products? We should always be mindful of the perils of abundance. Interaction designers are essentially “choice architects” since we provide users options to navigate to different places and execute various actions. Therefore, we should always keep in mind that choices can have a negative effect on our users. Within reason, we should try to anticipate what is best for the user rather than inundate them with options. Since choice can cause paralysis leading users to actually choose nothing, we should organize options so that if users do nothing, they actually get what is in their best interest.

Recently the Pew Internet and American Life Project released a study on technology users, which claims that nearly 50% of Americans fall in the “low-tech” group. Is it just me, or does this number seem quite low for this day and age?

This study definitely warrants a closer inspection. One interesting trait it measures is the user’s attitude toward technology. The low-tech users are broken down into three groups: Inexperienced experimenters, Light but satisfied, Indifferent, and Off the network.  76% of Inexperienced experimenters were likely to be excited by information and communications technologies, as compared with 48% of people on average. How does this in any way categorize a user as “low tech”? Doesn’t enthusiasm for technology (even if you can’t use it or don’t own it) count for something?

In comparison, let’s look at Connected but hassled, members of the mid-range tech group who have broadband and mobile devices, but wish they didn’t. Many members of this group claim to suffer from information overload, and feel they would do just fine without the internet, email or mobile phone.

In the world of web-marketing, where does attitude come to play? As far as marketing goes, isn’t an enthusiastic novice more alluring than a jaded tech-user?

In a recent trip to the Bay Area, I had the pleasure of visiting a friend, who happens to also be a game designer and technophile. At some point I tried to use his computer to check my email and found, to my surprise, the most bizarre-looking keyboard I had ever seen.

Not only were the letters all out of order, but the space button was the size of a normal shift button, and placed only on one side! Being somewhat curious, and more than somewhat addicted to email, I decided to give it shot. After a few painstaking misspelled sentences, I began to feel perturbed. I realized my frustration was tied to the fact that I know how to use a keyboard, but this keyboard was simply not doing its intended job.

Later in this same trip, I had the mixed-pleasure of driving a Toyota Prius. Without any guidance, I plopped into the driver’s seat with the key, only to find there was no ignition, simply a power button . To make things even more interesting, the gear shifter was actually electronic and pushing the lever up puts the car in reverse, while pushing it down puts it in drive. Though I was excited by the new technology, I never really became accustomed to driving this car, even after several outings.

Certain mental models - like typing and driving, are so ingrained into our psyche that they become second nature. Forcing users to break these habits can actual cause physical discomfort. When does the benefit of a new technology outweigh the cost of frustration to the user?

The answer lies in the user’s human condition. The ergonomic keyboard is actually a source of relief for carpal-tunnel sufferers. The Toyota Prius, with its 60 mpg potential, is a huge relief to drivers suffering from the high gas costs (currently $3.30 in California). New technologies which break such ingrained conventions as typing, driving, or even clicking are more likely to be adopted if they are not forced upon the user, but consciously chosen by the user. As interface designers, it’s easy to get excited by new technologies such as AJAX, but if we want users to adopt, we have to find a way to make users see the benefit. How can Ajax relieve user pain?