Your favorite song comes on the radio while you’re driving. You know the one. The one single song in all of music that makes everything seem ok. You reach down and crank it up. And to your surprise, your transmission is 200 feet behind you. This is one example of the Frustration & Astonishment Factor. Actions we take every day that, in one, and only one example, create untold destruction.
Someone on the assembly line probably thought “I’m NEVER buying this car.” A car buyer probably doesn’t look at how this is setup until they go to turn up the volume. And then they’re pissed.
We do this in software all the time. We put up response boxes that say “Do you want to cancel?” and render CANCEL and OK buttons. We put important actions and statuses in areas that are not in the user’s view. And then we tell them “you need to learn how to use the application.” No, we need to build the application in a way that mimics how people think and work.
