Fighting the tech maze

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to use product’ or ‘simple 5 step process’ or ‘effortless system’ does not actually make them easy to use. You the end-user gets to decide, and vote with your ‘purchasing decisions’ whether you agree or not.

No offence to the technologists out there. But typically technologists are not commonly oriented to working on how to make life simpler for the average person. It requires different skills and expertise to do this. Technologists typically focus on how to make a design work. How easy the design is to use is not necessarily their focus, or, even if it is, their perception of easy to use may be very different from the average end-user of that design. These are two very different and both critical focuses.

Unfortunately complexities of technology have engulfed our waking hours. Like when you could not figure out how to turn off the ‘everyday’ selection on your mobile alarm and jumped up in bed, palpitating and sweating at 5 am on a Sunday morning, cursing. But who do you curse?

So, consumers do not be afraid or feel inferior by product claims that proudly declare something as ‘easy to use’, while you are struggling with it. It is not you who is stupid, it is they who forgot about you, forgot to include you when they were designing. But you, the end-consumer gets to decide.

So what can you do? First, when you buy or subscribe to something, you can ask how long it will take to setup the simple 5-step enrollment. You decide whether that is too long or not and refuse to sign up for it. You can also ask to speak with previous users and can even do that online. It can actually save you time later. Remember once you own the product, the complexities are yours and yours alone. And complexity today is non trivial and growing rapidly.

Basically, people use a product or access a website to do something. It must help them get that done. This becomes critical particularly with websites, now that many of us interact with them on a daily basis.