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Number
41: February 25, 2004
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This week in Katydid:
Human
Factors in Voting
If you've ever played with tangrams
(or the game Tangoes),
the Chinese puzzle where you manipulate geometric shapes to make
patterns, you know how challenging they can be. You can spend hours
working on them.
Of course, if it gets too frustrating you can just read the solution.
It always seems so simple and you ask yourself why you hadn't seen that
before. (Okay, my daughters ask me why I hadn't seen that before.)
Your customers feel that same frustration when they can't figure out
your web site, or your product. This important part of marketing gets
overlooked in the pressure to deliver customers; but if they can't use
it, they won't recommend it.
The most common approach (especially with computer-based
applications) is to alleviate the frustration by providing the answers.
But providing a manual doesn't make the product any more intuitive than
the tangram. In fact, that's the test – if you need instructions of any
kind, it's not intuitive. (How many times have you pulled a door handle
when you were supposed to push?)
This is one reason why your engineers and designers shouldn't write
the instructions. They can't avoid making assumptions about what a
reasonable person would do.
Your product is your company to your customer. When they interact
with it, they are developing opinions about you. The easier it is for
them, they more they trust you. That's why intuitive design is not a
luxury; your credibility depends on it.
In fact, quality design is the foundation of democracy. Voting
depends entirely on trust. The lock on the ballot box is not there just
to prevent fraud; it's there to make you comfortable that your vote will
be counted.
The infamous butterfly ballot is a case in point. The butterfly
ballot has candidates on both sides of the layout with punch holes down
the center. The first hole is for the first candidate on the left side
and the second hole is for the first candidate on the right side.
Unfortunately, people who want to vote for the second candidate on the
left side very often punch the second hole (instead of the third)
without even analyzing the design. Bruce Tognazzini of the Nielsen
Norman group put together a wonderful
analysis of its poor design and how it has affected elections for
both parties in the past.
With something as important and personal as one's vote, you'd think
they'd be more careful. But that point of view belongs to the person who
has seen the solution. Most of the people who incorrectly filled out the
butterfly ballots were certain they filled them out correctly, until
they heard stories after the fact. It was intuitive for them at the
time.
Usability problems undermine the credibility of the process. In spite
of the fact that the best voting solutions have a one to three percent
error rate, most Americans still have confidence in the process. That's
because the margin of victory usually outstrips the margin of error.
Companies that produce voting systems strive to reduce that error
rate. The State of Maryland recently commissioned RABA
Technologies to analyze the touchscreen solutions from Diebold
Election Systems. In their report
(PDF), they state that the system works well enough for the voter to
trust it, but that there were risks for fraud.
Diebold (and their competitors) are working on technical solutions to
these problems. They assure the public that their systems will be
accurate and tamper-proof. They say that the problems are esoteric
enough that few would have the ability or the opportunity to exploit
them.
However, in marketing terms, they should remember that they are not
selling accuracy, low-cost, or convenience. Those are important, but
what they are really selling is trust – confidence (however idealistic)
that order will prevail and no matter the result, the orderly transfer
of government works.
Touchscreen systems – even those that print receipts – reduce user
confidence because they isolate the user from the process. The act of
voting has always been physical. You raise your hand. You say
'aye." You step forward. You pull a lever or punch a card. Touching
a screen is not the same experience. It doesn't have the finality that
making a mark imparts.
Moreover, you don't see the results. You don't hand the ballot over
to be counted. With ballots, you have a public record. No one wants to
have to do it, but public confidence resides in the fact that you could
recount if you had to. Additionally, the very public nature of voting
increases user confidence. Internet voting systems, while convenient,
would also undermine the impression that we have an open system of
government.
As a marketer that wants to increase voter trust, I want voting to be
a physical act with a physical record. As a human factors analyst, I
want to reduce the number of decisions at any point to one. Technology
has a role to play if it can facilitate a truly intuitive design. It's
best reserved for the collection and reporting phases. (Goodness knows
we make efficient counting systems.)
One of the reasons we enjoy puzzles like tangrams is that they have
one right answer. I enjoy computer programming because it is one place
where logic prevails. But when it comes to interfacing with people, we
have to accept trade-offs in efficiency. We have to let go of the one
right answer and choose a strategy that builds trust and accountability
over factors of cost and efficiency.
Every four years, we begin the Presidential primary season by making
fun of the quaint Iowa caucuses. In small groups all over the state,
people vote for their candidates by literally standing behind their
choice. Call it inefficient and time-consuming, but the outcome is never
in doubt.
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Kind regards,
Kevin Troy Darling
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