Shadowing Practice: Why User Experience Is Harder Than Engineering - Learn English Speaking with Video

Hello, welcome back to China Manufacturing Decoded from Sophist.

Adrian hosting today and Paul Adams, our head of new product development, joins me for this episode.

Hello, Paul.

Adrian, good to be back.

How are you doing, sir?

Well, we're recording this just after England have crashed out of the World Cup.

So try to minimise the long faces today and still enjoy the podcast.

yeah yeah yeah it's uh less said about

that the better i think that's it that's it we move

we move on good effort boys good effort that's it that's it that's it um

so episode 337 today and we're going to be talking a little bit about uh user experience

so let's say you've got a product and it meets every specification

and it passes all of the tests

but it's still actually kind of of frustrating users it sounds like the product is fine

but clearly there's something that is not okay

and you know the users they don't experience all the stuff

that happens beforehand so test results and and uh

and the different testing

and whether it reaches a specification they're going to experience actually using the product

so if it doesn't respond properly or the controls aren't very clear or it feels awkward somehow,

that's going to be negative for users.

So what I'd like to explore today with you,

Paul, is why user experience is actually often harder to get right rather than the engineering itself.

So for the first question,

how can a product pass every technical test but still fail when it's in a user's hands?

Well, yeah, this is an interesting topic and that's a very good question to open the adventure, I think.

And I guess a specification is a checklist, okay, is not an end product.

And I think that's the key thing.

Now, a specification should be a measurement or a voltage or timing or something very,

very specific that has a number or a specification against it.

Okay.

Whereas the user experience, you can't really pin that down to anything very, very specific in a specification.

Okay.

So the specification may be, um, it's, it's a soft touch or it's a hard touch or it's got the grip or whatever the case may be.

You can write that down.

Yeah.

But until you actually get it in your hands or the user starts to use it for real, then that's when you start to get the feedback.

Right.

And your, you know, detailed specification where you've written down that the grip of a, uh, let's call it a pistol drill,

you know, so I have an electric drill, whatever the pistol can be.

You said, you know what?

It needs to be soft.

It needs to be pliable.

It needs to be actually a sure hardness of 60A.

Yeah.

It's very, very specific, but how does that actually feel in the right?

So this is very, very different when it comes to each person using it.

You can't actually write that down in numbers.

I think this is where things go wrong.

So there's actually, you know, for example, I've got a live case I'm working on at the moment where it's a battery-operated product.

And you can imagine in the packaging, you need to lift out the products from the packaging.

Now, depending on how to look it out on where the product is actually put into the packaging, there's finger holes to pull this out.

Right there is potentially the on-off button.

Now, during our pre-production testing, we built a number of products.

and the operators were putting the product into the packaging

and now accidentally turning on the products as they were putting

in the packaging okay it gets sent out to the customer

the customer says no this product's fault is no good

or it's right they're not even charged even when I buy my

expensive phones they come at 80% charge this is dead already you know user experience straight out the box,

you know, first experience is this product's not good,

you know, because we've had an accidental mischief on the way it's being operated.

Now, is it correct?

Well, a specification says it was supposed to be turned on by the press of a button.

Okay.

In this particular case, talk to the customer about this.

This is a good point.

Let's change it to a two second long press.

okay excellent okay let's build iteration software change and we sent

that out to a number of people

and the feedback was the product's faulty it doesn't turn on

okay it does all you got to do is hold it

for two seconds for all of our products all i've got to do is hold it for

you know two milliseconds or whatever and it turns on

so again we discussed that internally and with the customer

and said look this is the actual real life this is

the user experience okay not the specification specification is correct it's all about the user experience the user experience

regardless whether it comes out of the bro you know it's when you turn it on it's a short on

long off okay

so we've changed it what we've done in order to overcome the accidental press down is remove the the position

or the orientation of the how it puts in in other words we have

four finger groups we remove two so the only way

that you could actually manage to put the product into the packaging

and take it out of the packaging is where the on off button was not located

so that will overcome that problem and it resolved the user experience by getting

that feedback to how it's expected okay

so this is all about specification versus real life user experience

okay you can't necessarily in this case it was a number literally two milliseconds versus two seconds was wrong

but we wouldn't have done that unless we had that user experience feedback

and not another one i'm working on as well is you take the product safety specification

and look at temperature okay

so you know it's like i've got a speaker yeah recipe

does it get hot no it doesn't is it comfortable hold yes it is

but if i go down kitchen and pick up my kettle

and it's just boiled man i'm not going to be able to pick

that up okay specification says right the temperature of the outside

surface of a product uh exclude the kettle obviously should be

less than 60 degrees centigrade from a safety point of view

now obviously there's variations with respect to how long you can hold it you know there's talking about seconds

100

but if you come up with a product

101

that says right okay 60 i want to go 40

102

so we've got plenty of safety margin so that 40 degrees

103

that sounds all right that's all good okay look at that written down in a specification

104

We actually build the products in 40 degrees okay user experience

105

okay there's a kitchen product for example now it's on therefore it is at 40 degrees

106

user picks it up in the kitchen

107

because they want to move it from one service work service to the kitchen table or

108

or another counter okay halfway through they're thinking oh this is

109

getting hot what do they do burn the hands drop it

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or run whatever the case may be does it make the

111

stress of game yes it does with quite a bit of

112

safety margin is it comfortable for the user no it's not um

113

so you know it's specification and the feel or user experience is

114

that that gap that is often forgotten about okay

115

and this is i think the key theme with respect to this whole podcast

116

and what we're talking about here is specification is one thing

117

the user experience is not necessarily something you put down accurately in a product spec

118

or product requirement at all

119

so i think those two real life experiences i've been working

120

on just recently um come to mind give this uh a

121

really good grounding with respect to yeah how we how we address this let's say

122

which i think is the next section we should talk about yeah it's more nebulous isn't it uh

123

when you're in the development

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phase of of bringing your product to market

125

because it's like until you get the product into users hands there's actually all bets are off yeah yeah exactly

126

so yeah in um yeah for example right the usability right is harder than the engineering aspect

127

when it comes to design let me explain what

128

that means you know and i've already alluded to this a little bit um

129

so the engineering has the right answer okay experience does not

130

and which i sort of said earlier

131

because you can't actually write the experience down as a specification sometimes now for example uh

132

and i said something about this and you take a circuit

133

or it either works

134

or it doesn't you know you take a tolerance now a tolerance could be held

135

or it can't you know with intolerance

136

or it's a help in other words it's very easy to prove

137

when the engineering aspect is being solved or it's not

138

so very clear cut with usability on the other hand that's

139

a bit of a fuzzy area you know there is no clear line with respect to how to actually say

140

that yes this has actually passed all of the specifications from

141

a usability point of view say i'll take a product right i'm testing it

142

and i think oh this is great it feels good in

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my hand it does what it's supposed to do um it doesn't you know, it's not too heavy.

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It's perfect for me.

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It's great.

146

You then get the bird, Adrian, and you go, well, actually, it's a bit light.

147

It feels a little bit flimsy to me.

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We put it onto my own mum, for example, bless her.

149

You know, that's too heavy.

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You know, I can't use it at all.

151

So again, we need to understand that the usability is very fuzzy with respect to who's using it to start with

152

what's the intention of the product right

153

and how we address all of those moving forward with respect to how do we get a solid design

154

that meets probably not everybody's usability experience

155

but certainly well on the way to nine percent and

156

that is you know what let's face it that's what products are all about solving a problem

157

that you've got a problem you need a solution now

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that is where the product comes in it solves the solution or provides the solutions that you've got

159

now it depends as like i said earlier depends on the

160

device it depends on using it depends on whether it's left hand

161

or right hand it what that again so yeah that's the old joke he's got a left-handed toothbrush.

162

Guess what?

163

But it's all of these things that need to be taken into consideration.

164

And that is the difficult part.

165

And this is why the usability is a lot more difficult to actually pin down than anyone else.

166

Now, I want to talk about why this is underinvested, not investigated, probably is as well um

167

but it's not in my mind is not enough time

168

or effort or funds within the mpi process

169

that is allocated to this particular area and here's why okay

170

and and again no no surprises here it's not in the spec you can't actually put it in the spec

171

or if it is in the spec it's a little bit ambiguous

172

or it's a little bit you know you're sure a 60 what does

173

that mean is it a soft touch hard touch is it

174

like what about the texture what about the grips about them right

175

and all people children you know it's all these different things

176

that come into it from a specification point of view let's

177

say intolerance out of tolerance very easy okay well who's going to spend money on

178

it's field trials on the product you haven't got okay very

179

very difficult in in development now you can actually produce um

180

prototypes early early uh products intent with respect to it's a dummy product

181

but it weighs about the same as what it was

182

and we're only going to be testing one of this one feature that's a great idea how many people do

183

that not many okay under-invested in this particular area is it

184

hard to measure very hard to measure very hard to measure

185

particularly when it's subjective okay yeah

186

so i said earlier perfect for me a little bit you know a little bit light for you

187

but too heavy for my mom you know who's right who's right okay

188

because this is a subjective answer

189

that we're trying to actually pin down this specification how do you do

190

that there's a very fuzzy area like i said earlier um you know

191

and it's very difficult to actually say you know i'm gonna

192

i'm gonna spend twenty thousand dollars on this particular area now

193

if you've got that great i suggest you try and do

194

that and we can actually help you do

195

that with respect to like i said earlier early prototypes

196

that specifically are designed to actually capture one particular area of

197

a product like from a usability point of view um

198

and another thing it's this often comes up too late in

199

the mpi process in other words people don't do it at the early process stage

200

and they don't get the feedback until we're in production

201

or pre-production let's say where the pre-production is already in other words tooling is done we've got the jigs

202

and fixtures we've got everything ready and this is like pre-production

203

when you get a mass production you're going to order the next order is on the container loads

204

and then you're getting feedback that was saying, you know, oh, it's too heavy, it's too light, it's too this, too that, it's wrong, then you've got a product that's failed.

205

Did it fail from a specification?

206

No. It ticked all the boxes.

207

Everything was green as we went down the checklist.

208

It passed the NPI process.

209

It passed the final phase gate for the spec team.

210

Yes, let's go to mass production, but it still failed from user experience.

211

And this is why we are suggesting that let's look at this earlier in the MPI process,

212

as opposed to waiting until you've got a final product.

213

I'm trying to look around, for example, with my microphone that I had plugged earlier

214

but you know it's a great little great little products you know does it work yes it does

215

but it couldn't have worked at some point in certain circumstances you know etc etc you know

216

so you know it's it's one of those situations where it's under investigative uh under invested story

217

and investigative because it's a very difficult thing to actually pin down i mean very very good

218

and you can never judge this yourself because it's your pro it's the best thing ever

219

don't get the engineers designed it to actually judge it before

220

because i designed it it's gonna be great it's a perfect product yeah get people

221

that have never seen it before don't even know how to

222

use it nothing about it just get it to a blind with respect to give me your feedback

223

that is the best way you can actually do this for

224

sure your example about um some some products being too heavy

225

my grandmother um she needed a new vacuum cleaner i bought her one really nice big one um wireless

226

but too heavy and she doesn't like it uh but

227

if you want one with a powerful motor they are quite heavy

228

so is it bad is it wrong no

229

but is it actually good for you know elderly people

230

or some elderly people actually no i've got exactly the same situation you know

231

so my old mom you know she's uh mid-80s you know

232

she can't get around too much she must have vacuumed

233

that she can't even get the vacuum out of where it's stored you know let her use it um

234

so you know it's just one example you know this is one

235

so i've got a good example right i had

236

when i was um many years ago i was living in

237

china i bought myself a new phone this this thing is

238

it looks wonderful it's beautiful touch screen uh this many years ago i'm not going to tell you many years ago

239

and it was like it was beautiful how many times did i drop

240

that in a day i can't tell you why

241

because it was too slippery it it was just the wrong material you know function wise beautiful

242

i got rid of it within a month one month i must have dropped out about 40

243

or 50 times it was insane yeah it just wouldn't stay

244

in your hands you know it's just wrong material you know too smooth

245

so again this is a great uh example with respect to

246

product was great it probably ticked all of the boxes from

247

a specification for a view including cost um back then did it work well yeah it works

248

but user experience i hated it hated it you know i

249

couldn't keep it in my hands i don't know why it's

250

just i changed it after then every other phone after

251

that never had the same problem you know so it was the material

252

that was used on the on the case that was just snubber

253

and it could be something as simple as

254

that yeah absolutely okay yeah yeah absolutely absolutely

255

so we know what the problem is right uh

256

but how do we identify these experience problems these experience faults

257

um you know is there are are there some tips

258

that you can share

259

that can help us to know where to find them um

260

yes yeah yeah for sure for sure um it's uh you

261

know it's we're looking at i'm going to break this down

262

a few things okay um timing okay let me touch on timing that's in the specification

263

but it feels broken for example on

264

that lamp for example yeah the specification says wake up

265

or turn on uh after two seconds okay the feedback was doesn't work

266

you know

267

because the expectation from the user was as soon as you press the button it turns off okay

268

so twirling is a key thing with respect to specification is

269

something you need to get the user experience to actually provide

270

an accurate timing i've got multiple points where this is absolutely critical with respect to user experience is it working

271

or isn't yeah are the lights flashing right

272

or is it my eyes you know is it on or is it off i'm not sure

273

you know timing is a thing

274

so don't use uh your gut feel get user feedback with

275

respect to what timing you need to put on particularly in

276

the trans press okay i'm talking about turn on turn off

277

um reset you know after how many times does uh your

278

phone go you know black you think oh by the minute i'm still looking at it was gone blank yeah

279

so you're looking at response levels you're looking at pauses you're looking at pressing nothing happened

280

so timing is one of those things

281

that is quite easy to actually put in specification get it

282

right once you get user feedback okay well another one is um feedback that's missing

283

or it's ambiguous you know well to you know all of these are mentioned earlier

284

but breaking down into specifics you know i'm talking about getting user feedback on for example a product

285

that gives you a sound feedback like a beep

286

or something like this is the beat too loud isn't it

287

loud enough is it too long is it the wrong pitch

288

is it high pitch by pitch some people can't hear it low pitch yeah is it annoying you know

289

you've got in the specification product will beep for 30 seconds once it's doing this

290

or it will beat twice once it turns on that's great it pops as a specification you know

291

but a lot of people say i hate this product

292

that the noise it makes is to drive me nuts you know get it right you know

293

so it's not necessarily about the specification it's getting the the details from user experience this is why i'm saying

294

if you didn't get early feedback so much the better okay

295

so much the better don't wait until you've got products in the market where it's expensive to change

296

or do over the updates or whatever the case may be

297

because first unit experience is so important

298

because that's where your uh that's where your real feedback is

299

when it comes to reviews for example bad review product don't

300

work yes it does you just didn't hold it down long enough yeah uh too late no

301

another one is um reachability and readability okay

302

if it's got a button on it make sure it's tactile enough to actually understand what you're feeling.

303

I've run a motorbike and i've got an intercom so

304

when i've got my gloves on it's quite difficult

305

when i've got my gloves off it's easy for me to

306

actually say oh this is the intercom i want to talk

307

to the passenger on the back this is the income where the volume's up

308

or the volume's down or whatever the case may be

309

because i can beat it okay i haven't got a look

310

i can't look you know i'm riding my bike okay so So this is something that is really, really important from a usability point of view.

311

Again, very, very easy to actually put a design inside.

312

So you say, here's the symbol, put that on, we'll have that XYZ.

313

It's got the symbol on it, but does it work for the user?

314

Again, this is where you need that information.

315

Label on the products, okay?

316

Serial number.

317

If you've got a problem, just give us a serial number.

318

Where do I find the serial number?

319

Can't find it anywhere it you know make sure it's visible

320

and readable okay not printed on the inside

321

so no one can see it yeah make sure it's readable reachable

322

and accessible um is it hard to press yeah make sure the buttons you know it works yeah it works

323

but yeah my poor old mom your grandma yeah can't press

324

it you know that's no good it doesn't work yeah pressability

325

usability reachability all of these things are again in the in

326

the fuzzy specification area with respect to does it meet the

327

specification yeah we've got a button we've got the symbol

328

and it works okay but to what level okay

329

so again this is something uh very very simple to you know write down

330

but not as easy to actually get right so physical reach

331

and readability is one thing another one is setup oh my

332

goodness i am one of those type of guys will get the user manual throughout the window

333

and let's go for it myself you know as most guys

334

are okay no this is not necessarily the best way forward all right make sure

335

that your product is either intuitive to set up

336

or the user manual is so easy to read

337

that anybody can do it okay this is really really key

338

when it comes to a new product launch particularly

339

if it's a an innovative product that's new to the market

340

where you've never got one of these on the market before how does everybody oh this is the same as

341

so and so and

342

so yeah all we've got to do is press the button

343

turn it on the way we go no not necessarily the case sometimes

344

so make sure your setup is easy to understand intuitive to the user and clearly written down in the user manual

345

again very easy to give feedback on this send out the

346

user manual send out a product please give me some feedback

347

where can i improve things where can i make it simpler to understand

348

okay not everybody you don't need a Harvard degree

349

or an Oxford you know a university degree to use this

350

thing um yeah it could be uh sort of kindergarten level that's perfect okay so And setup is super, super important.

351

A lot of people don't take the time to actually understand that.

352

They just say, do do do do do do do do do do in specification, get ripped down the spec.

353

Whereas like black and white ones and zeros, yes, what is the case?

354

And the other big thing is you've got a product, you've got to live with it.

355

Okay.

356

You've got to use it you've got to use it not

357

just once not just one day not just one week you've got to live with this thing

358

if it's your product you need to be able to take this product phone

359

and use it as intended now again this may be a little bit biased

360

because you designate your products and you're talking about you as the product owner um

361

but you will soon realize and understand the this is annoying

362

or that could be better you know

363

because you actually start to live with it as opposed to

364

you wrote the spec you know you agreed all of the

365

designs you know you signed off on the tooling you were there for the pv run you know

366

and everything like this

367

but have you actually used it for any length of time

368

has anybody else used it for any length of time

369

so you've got to live with it

370

so they are my um let's say go to golden nuggets with respect to how do you actually understand

371

how to specify usability better than uh make the grip sure 60 well same as everything else

372

needs a little bit more than that guys needs a lot more than that so i think that is basically

373

the golden nuggets from that one so you know it's it's

374

that you know deep diet was to how to use the product

375

and i think that

376

that last one where i said living with it you will

377

not start to understand whether this is a good product

378

or it's a bad product for example you know

379

if you've got a mobile phone there's a size of a brick

380

and it's heavy as a brick you know looks great you

381

know potentially it's like you know fantastic best thing since sliced

382

bread is it convenient to carry in your bag could you

383

put it in your pocket what about you know all of

384

these things until you actually live with it you think actually this is not

385

so great after all so this is one of the biggest things

386

that i would say get early early prototypes as as early as you can or some very very early

387

um sort of off tool products you can actually start to use

388

and use for a long time now i do have one customer

389

that has actually done that

390

and in fact i'm using one of the products as well on a daily basis i love it it's great

391

and this is where we actually found out that the the on button was

392

two seconds that's not intuitive doesn't feel like the two seconds off yes great

393

but it needs to turn it on for the one button

394

so this is uh much needed okay to understand uh yeah okay

395

so uh those those golden nuggets are a good sort of place to end.

396

Definitely something to be thinking of.

397

And that's why I always enjoy these episodes from the mind of an engineer when we get you on, Paul, because this kind of,

398

this is real theory that gets put into practice at a jillion, you know, on the daily.

399

So, yeah, I hope that the listeners are getting some food for thought from these these.

400

So yeah, specifications, all well and good, but when it comes to user experience,

401

that's not necessarily going to be the be all and end all.

402

Yes, true.

403

Yeah, you need to feel it, use it and live with it.

404

There you go.

405

That should be the title of the podcast.

406

Nice one.

407

Great, okay.

408

Well, thanks for joining us, Paul.

409

And to the listeners, thanks for joining us as well.

410

Any other questions, do contact us and let us know.

411

We will be back next week as normal.

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About This Lesson

What is the Shadowing Technique?