I decided to buy a new TV.
I did a quick round of visits to local stores.
I found a 32” Sony I liked at a good price and a professional salesperson.
The following Sunday I went back to make my purchase.
The salesperson was not there.
While waiting for another, I overhear the manager trying to convince a caller to buy last year’s Sony 57” model for the same price I was paying for the 32”.
I approach him and commit to buying it. He finds the remote for it, which is quite large.
It does not turn on the TV. “But that is easy to solve,” he says. I’ll get the manual.
The only manual for the model is in Spanish.
“That’s easy to solve.” Take the remote with you and take the batteries out. That will set it back to default values. When the TV is delivered, put them back in.
The TV arrives a week later. My wife is miffed about rearranging the furniture to fit it in.
I put the batteries in. The remote does not turn on the TV. I call the manager. “That’s easy to solve. Come to the store and I will give you one of our new programmable remotes, no charge.”
I program the new remote and turn on the TV. Looks great. I press the PIP (picture-in-picture) button. A small PIP window appears, showing the same channel as the big picture because I have cable TV. Also a second press gets a split-screen PIP; a third gets 16 images of the same channel. A fourth press goes back to the screen with the small PIP window. I can’t turn off PIP.
The old remote and TV had an extra function, a key labeled “PIP OFF.” The new TV does not have or recognize that function.
The manager is confused, offers to come to my house (he doesn’t really believe me).
Manager comes and can’t turn PIP off. Suggests I call their customer service, available to all customers for the first 30 days.
Call customer service and explain the problem. “That’s easy to solve. I will write the issue on the work order and send one of my people. But can’t schedule you for at least 10 days.”
Technician arrives, looks about 18. But enthusiastic despite having no description of the issue on the work order.
“I have never seen that new remote before. Do you have the manual?” Spends 20 minutes looking through it. Can’t turn off PIP.
“This is easy to solve. We have a guy at the shop who used to work for Sony. I will call him.” Goes out to his truck.
20 minutes later, comes back. “He showed me how to set the TV back to the default settings.” He proceeds to press and hold several buttons. PIP disappears.
“It’s easy to solve. All you have to do is use this sequence to get the defaults back.”
“But I also lost all of my personalizations, like which channels are active, which are my favorites, etc. I am not going to go through that every time someone accidentally presses the PIP button.”
“Humm”
I get an insight. “How about if we program the PIP key to do something else, like channel up. That way there will be no harm if someone pressed it by accident. The PIP function is useless anyway with cable.”
We program the button. Success. “That was easy to solve.”
Learning to be an effective user experience consultant or contractor is a challenge. Most of us learn through experience and from watching colleagues. It’s hard to find advice that applies to our everyday experience working with and for clients — at least it was for me. I did, however, come across one book with one guideline that has been consistently valuable.
The book is Managing The Professional Service Firm by David Maister. The guideline is to ask yourself every day, or at least every week, “What can I do for my client today?” It does not mean looking in the Statement of Work to see what the next deliverable is. Doing what you are contracted to do well is necessary but not sufficient to be effective. It’s the extras you provide that make you special as a consultant.
For example, I am sitting in the usability lab in the early morning with an hour before my first session of the day. What can I do for my client today? Three ideas come to mind:
None of these ideas would be a burden to implement, but they would add value to my work, value that my client can see. You might argue that these three ideas are what a good consultant should be doing anyway. Well, that is my point.
Whenever I ask this question of myself, the answers are always immediate, useful, and easily done. Give it a try.
I have always been annoyed by people with multiple stickers on their cars like “My other car is a broom.” I guess they want me to see them as clever. Harrumph!
But clever vanity license plates are a different matter. When I was working for a consulting firm some of my colleagues referred to me as “Dr. Usability.” I believe it was intended as a complement. So I have been thinking about getting a vanity license plate I B DR U . Of course no one but my wife and a few colleagues would know what it means.
That stimulated me to think of some other plates that would promote the user experience profession, plates more interesting than USABLE . I image traveling along the Pacific Coast Highway informing all who find themselves behind me:
I B USR – my connection to the community of all users as is ILUVUSRS
UX4EVR –promotes the user experience profession, as does UXRCKS
UX4YNME – call to action, as is RU4UX
CUNLAB – recruiting aid
What would your vanity license say?
UXBARBI
Does that also mean every time you have to change the batteries the remote sets to default? What a feature.
Maybe once you finish that Spanish course, you’ll have all the answers.
Vel