I’ve held off writing this article for quite a while; I think it’s because my initial reactions were too far over to the “snide” direction. Let’s treat this more as a LFMF (learn from my fail) lesson rather than a critique.
The story begins with a New York Times article: ‘Aggravating’ MyFord Touch Sends Ford Plummeting in J.D. Power Quality Survey. Fascinated, and interested to see how usability problems could harm an entire brand, I investigated. Can customer complaints about complexity cause a decline in an overall rating, even when Ford is maintaining manufacturing quality? Short answer: yes, and this shows the breadth of influence of usability. Lesson 1: Usability is of critical importance; poor usability (to the point of aggravation) is a huge risk and can harm an entire product, even a brand. Usability has high ROI.
How bad was the problem? A scathing review of the Ford My Touch user interface from the Truth About Cars web site said: “Even with several weeks’ worth Touch-equipped press cars under my belt, I still have to stop and think about what it is I’m trying to do. Sometimes, the interface is so unintuitive that I jab at the SYNC button with frustration and curtly inform the synthetic slave girl behind the dash what exactly it is I want ‘her’ to do.” This reviewer is giving an example of the kind of experiences drivers must have been having (hence the J.D. Power results). Lesson 2: Usability Testing could have discovered these issues before production; they’re not subtle and hidden. Plan to test your products with real users; observe them; listen to their feedback; plan on making changes and iterating the design.
Another remark that gave me pause: “The story […] is much like that of any other fancy gadget. Early adopters get the worst of it, dealing with patches and updates and pesky issues that never seem to go away. Such is the way of modern software, unfortunately.” Do early adopters have to get the worst of it? That’s just bad practice. Re-read lesson 2 and plan some analysis before production and release. Early adopters can be evangelists and advocates; not likely if we expect them to wade through “patches and updates and pesky issues” as well as user interface frustrations.
To check that the Truth About Cars reviewer wasn’t an outlier or curmudgeon, I also read the Consumer Reports review, which included the comment: “None of the options works as well or is as easy to use as old-fashioned knobs and switches, and they can be more time-consuming and distracting to operate. First-time users might find it impossible to comprehend.” Aside from the surprisingly strong language (“impossible!”) which reinforces my first point about usability’s importance, this is perhaps a third lesson. Lesson 3: Don’t be seduced by technology when designing and developing a product. It’s not magic; it takes thought, hard work, and many iterations to make something easy to use; it doesn’t come free with high tech. In fact, it’s hard to get even to the baseline of usability set by physical interface elements we sometimes brush off as old-fashioned.
I would hope the story (and its lessons) would end here, maybe with an updated interface that addresses some of the issues. Alas, it does not. Ford tried to fix the problems with training (always a red flag; a huge warning sign). See this DailyTech article: Ford Will Offer At-Dealership Courses on How to Use MyFord Touch. Lesson 4: You can’t really fix usability problems with training. Corollary: If you ignore lessons 1-3, you’re going to pay, probably by spending more on training than if you had spent on design.
There are several simple principles of Human-Centered Design, and this tale illustrates them well. Involve users, early and often (don’t let early adopters bear the brunt of usability issues). Find usability problems early and iterate the design while it’s still relatively inexpensive to do so.