...shining a light on Dark Patterns

Dark Patterns, if you're unfamiliar with the term, are anti-usability practices which harness UI design in a purposefully unfriendly way to trick and coerce web users into doing things they don't want to. For example, hiding marketing opt-out checkboxes behind double-speak, or subscription services which are simple to sign up for, but difficult to cancel. These manipulative practices are tarred and feathered in enlightening detail at DarkPatterns.org, thanks to User Experience Designer Harry Brignull. He's behind the movement and is helping consumers, designers and the like get empowered with case study evidence. Big companies who should - and DO - know better, are petting, smoking and bombing in the deep end of the pool and Harry's got the whistle.

At this point, I'd like to thank Harry for his skillz and insight which help write this piece. I'd also like to warn you, dear reader, that this is a less pithy post than usual, so you may want to take this opportunity to make yourself a nice cup of tea or perhaps some squash, before settling down. And, taking the advice of my old English teacher, I'll try not to be flippant.

When Dark Patterns occur in an online interface, they're relatively easy to map due to their outward facing nature; anyone with a web browser has the opportunity to experience the same issue. Dark Pattern practices can also rear their ugly head in emails. But due to the individually tailored nature of delivery to users, there are variables which cannot be assumed to be universal: someone who receives a newsletter may have opted out of certain alert services; servers may delay the receipt of an email; pertinent images may not be displayed or blocked, and so on. Emails are, in essence, a two way conversation. However, when cynical themes reveal themselves within the contents of an email, and if one can suppose are part of a blanket mailshot, it's worth flagging up these dubious activities, documenting them, and placing them on the naughty step.

Hands up who uses gas or electricity? That's nearly the whole room. Hands up who has EDF Energy as their utility supplier? Okay, so a few of you may feel my pain. Let me explain...

I'm an EDF Energy customer who chooses to receive paper bills through the post. I can keep track of them easier this way, making sure I'm being billed the correct amount whilst having a tangible reminder in my hand - they are 'pushed' to me. I like the simplicity. It's convenient. But EDF have different ideas. They want to 'pull' my bills, that is, for me to access them online - you know, 'paperless billing'.

So, as part of their drive to make the billing of their services more 'flexible', EDF offered online account management, sending an email to me as a customer already taking part in their online self meter-reading scheme. (With this scheme, the customer receives an email alerting them it's time to login using their unique energy account number to submit a meter reading). The email outlines the perceived benefits of paperless billing opposed to traditional paper bills and encourages the customer - or 'user' - to take up the offer.

Viewing the email in closer detail, it's found that the user has been automatically signed-up for paperless billing without being asked, with a prominent CTA (call to action) inviting the user to click through and register, thus completing the process. It's pledged that your account will be reverted back to its original state - paper billing - if you don't register by the given cutoff point 12 days later (15th March).

Of course you don't have to click and register, but whether you do something or do nothing, the onus is placed on the user; even by doing nothing, you still do something. As long as the user understands these rules of engagement, it's possible to refrain from any online account activity with EDF until that 'safe' cutoff date. But the forced positive is a sneaky way of hiding account conversion behind a smokescreen of convenience, using a similar technique to the Forced Continuity principal. Not wanting to be at the end of a possible Faraway Bill, something which can arise with pull notifications, I choose not to respond to the email.

I received a follow up email from EDF eight days later, 11th March - three days before the cutoff point when my account resumes normal service, and this is when things get interesting. (Remember, I am a paper billing customer who has chosen to not click through, login, or sign up, purposefully to avoid automatically having my account switched to a service I never requested). I'm being alerted that my bill is ready to view online, with a CTA link to take me there. The language used is suggestively very different than before; I'm now invited to 'login' to access my bill online, rather than the invitation to 'sign up' previously received.

Employing the Bait and Switch Dark Pattern and elements of Misdirection, there is nothing in this email acknowledging the aforementioned consequence of logging in - automatically accepting online account management and forfeiting your paper bills. The email's tone is friendly and inviting, again using convenience to coerce the user into clicking through. But the email also preys on the user's fear of consequence for not paying a bill. At this point in the communication, EDF will likely experience a spike in their paper-to-online billing conversion rate, a result of customers, such as myself, following the instruction of the email and unwittingly accepting the automatic sign up to paperless billing.

It's in EDF's interest to move customers to online billing. Paper bills are expensive to produce, and they'll have heavily invested budget and resources into their online account management tool. So it's hardly surprising they engage in such activities, taking advantage of habitual responses to interface conventions internet users have grown to trust.

I must admit, there's also an environmental issue in play here, and online billing goes a little way to help save resources. I can't ignore this. But one gets the feeling that the initiative is small potatoes baking in a multi-national energy supplier's furnace, adding brand value in a wider, more cynical agenda.

So where does this leave me? I didn't respond to the email. Over six weeks passed and I hadn't realised I'd not received my bill in the post. Cue phone call to EDF. A nice chap on the line told me I had been signed up for paperless billing. I explained that I hadn't requested this at all and was worried about the consequence of a payment which was well overdue. Please can I just have a bill posted to me like normal?

"Yes, no problem. I'll set you back up with paper billing now, you'll get your bill next week."

I feel completely manipulated.

I start writing this blog entry.

...taking charge

Here's a riddle. Which of these two chargers is in the process of charging? The one with the red light which suggests - STOP! Do not unplug - CHARGING! Or the one with the green light which suggests GO! Proceed. Ready. Done. Charged. I give you the GREEN light to use this battery.

The answer is both. BOTH chargers are charging, although each has decided to tread their own semiotic path. The Canon uses years of hard-wired logic to stop you in your tracks, to caution you that it's not ready. To wait. To obey the STOP light; the red a signifier of danger, a deterrent. The Panasonic, however, uses its own special method of telling the user 'Hello, I'm working! Green for GO! I'm moving along here, charging this battery, and once I've stopped charging, I'll show you a red light, to say I've stopped, okay?'

I'd be the first to say the Panasonic has it wrong. But interestingly, as both chargers sat there, simultaneously grazing on electricity, I wasn't able to differentiate the state of each, their separate messages cancelling the other out. And I was in turn reminded of how whenever I use a battery charger - regardless of whether the light is red or green when in the process of charging - I'll ignore the light anyway;  taking the battery out and popping it back in again to get the status feedback I really want. This bypasses the long-winded process of finding the instruction book (wherever that may be) which should show me what light signifies what.

Here's an idea, to stop the doubt once-and-for-all: two lights and some clear semantics.

RED LIGHT: Charging
GREEN LIGHT: Ready

Problem solved (in Photoshop).

...change given

Imagine a world where all vending and ticketing machines were born equal, whatever their shape or size. A world in which the opportunity to perform their task was on a level playing field where any denomination of banknote or coinage was either spent or re-pocketed not by mistake but by rational choice of the user. A world in which every owner of these machines can confidently claim - and know to be one hundred percent true - the catchphrase 'Money goes in, Service comes out'. You may think I'm crazy. A maverick. A silly heart. A utopian fantasist. But this, comrades, is a dream. My dream. Dream no. 47, on a dream list which exists only as a dream itself, to act as the rather wordy and pompous catalyst to tell you how putting money in a slot has become a more usable experience. For a handful of Brightonians. Who drive cars.

So here's the original You May Also Like entry. For those who like nutshells and their contents, the abridged version goes like this:

Brighton City College had a ticket entry machine with some confusing instructions which looked like this:

And I suggested it may help if it looked like this:





















Well, I've been back recently and was pleased to discover it's been updated and now looks like this:

Very very close to the labelling and information hierarchy I suggested, which I firmly believe will help people park more successfully.

So, a small victory for usability, and something - should I obtain access to a time machine - I can take with me as I travel back to 1984 and say to me as a kid "Keep drawing volcanoes son (make sure you don't colour over the lines). You don't know it yet, but all this colouring in will one day mean some people will be able to leave their car for a couple of hours without getting a parking ticket".

And with that, my work here is done ... puff of smoke. *cough*

...compact discs

I had a nice reminder of the beauty of simplicity at the weekend at my parent's surprise golden wedding celebration. A digital slide projector had been set up to carousel through collected photographic memories, and I was asked to get it working. I'd never touched one of these things before, and the guests of honour were arriving in minutes, but all I needed to do was plug in the memory stick full of JPGs, and ... oh dear - the menu system was rather maze-like. After some panicked button bashing, I was pointed to a neat little laminated A4 instruction sheet created, by the owner, to handle the most common scenario: this one (except showing diagrams and spreadsheets rather than snaps of marital bliss). Content aside, it worked a treat and I was thankful for the homemade quickstart guide as the photos rolled on.

A little later on, the slide show needed to be turned off for twenty minutes whilst the band played, so I was summoned. No quickstop guide this time, just more fiddling around with buttons, nested menu screens and the like. "I don't want to turn it off, I just want it to pause!"

Enter band member Pete. "Why don't you just put something in front of the lens?"

So with that, the problem was solved the good old fashioned analogue way, with a CD case propped up to 'hide' the projection.

It was a nice reminder how we don't always need to hunt for the solution if the simplest fix is at hand, regardless of the delivery method. I know I've been guilty of relying on mobile Google maps when a 'just ask' would suffice, or promising to email a hex number when a quick pen on paper note would be quicker. Technology's getting ever-more useful and (arguably) easier to use, but we should remember simplicity and sensibility when we're problem solving, just like I didn't, but wished I had.

Today we learned:
One day, CDs will be gone, and you can't prop up an MP3 in front of a slide show.

...gate pride

Site gates are great. Pure 'form follows function'. In fact, it's function where form didn't even bother to follow, it stayed in bed and watched The Jeremy Kyle Show (it doesn't get up for less than its day rate). These gates are the perfect emblem of budget constraints, and what can be achieved with a tiny bottom line.

Development in the natural world relies in taking the most from the least, by travelling the shortest distance, by expending the least energy. Behind these functional closed doors lies the heart of a project where the rest of the money's been spent, so these gates need to work to the same laws of nature and perform as the definition of a gate, nothing more, but also nothing less. To protect the rest of the project (both in the budgetary and security sense) and to work to best to their ability, they must be durable enough to withstand constant use and the elements, and secure enough to keep out the riff raff. Because they do the job so well, they command the respect that a rococo door just doesn't for this application. Therefore the viewer is asked to think about a new layer of aesthetics that goes beyond attractive by visual definition.

In your face ornate wrought iron gate. In. Your. Face.

...designer labels

Behind the scenes at the The Art Café, local establishment of the The Artist and the Tartist,  I stumbled upon a nice little bit of human interface design which, out of function and familiarity, is just another piece of the furniture, but deserves some recognition. It's a bank of switches which control the whole shop's lighting. The location of the switches means the person operating them is unable to see every light turning on in the shop, so without the obvious visual feedback, you wouldn't know which switch operates which light. With 18 buttons all told, it's quite a few to navigate in the dark. However, somebody has already sorted this out, and the switches are helpfully labelled, so anyone can grasp the controls - from a first day starter to a seasoned five-years-in-service employee.

Whether the person labelling the switches was conscious of it or not, they created the labels with information architecture as a guiding principal, using two different mediums to assist clarity of hierarchy; pen-on-paper stickers and Dymo tape.

The label created with the Dymo (nowadays called a Dymo Omega, but for the sake of this piece, I'll use the colloquial 'Dymo') acts as the category marker. Any light that lives either as an Inside Shop Light or as a Main Window Light is marked as such by living beneath the label. The pen-on-paper sticker labels the subcategory, pinpointing individual lights and also handles some instruction - there's three lights to be left on front of shop, and the user is aware.

I could see that these labels had been there a while, and personally knowing some of the premises history (from clothes shop, to book shop, to present day Art Cafe) my educated guess puts the labelling at one or two decades old, or quite possibly more. So the system - time proves - works, and Design is the catalyst. I propose this is in large part down to the Dymo.

There's something special about this traditional label maker, the way it permanently embosses information onto the self adhesive plastic. It empowers the user to create whatever naming label, cataloguing tag or pithy message they desire. But maybe more interestingly, it's a device which asks the user to think in order to operate it. You think about using the intuitive controls. You think about what words to create. But the crux of the process is you think about getting it right. There's no backspace or correction fluid to amend a mistake. You could use scissors to cut and paste erroneous letters, but that defeats the object of its purpose - to make labelling a breeze. Instead, you have to sit there and consider the purpose of the label you're about to create. Let's head to a domestic setting.

Christopher Walken is at his kitchen table, in his shorts, with a glass of lemonade and a Dymo:

"Okay, I need to label this Jar of flower - NO, i mean Flour. Must get that right. Let's see, what flour is it ... It's white flour, not wholemeal. But I NEVER use wholemeal and I'm the only person who bakes in this goddamn house. But I do often use Self-raising Flour. You know what, I'll be helping myself out if this jar's labelled Plain Flower - no wait - Flour ... Gosh! Must get that right. One shot, Christopher. ONE shot".

Christopher Walken is presented a task to perform with the very real possibility of making a mistake. If it's within his control and in his own interest to not make that mistake, he will take caution in his actions. He will work out the most appropriate solution to the task at hand. In this case, by knowing the advantages and pitfalls of using a Dymo and by figuring out the best semantics for his label, he'll create a useful item which will improve his environment. In short, Christopher Walken will design.

Whether used by a kid to name their text books, a DIY enthusiast to label her tins, a dad marking his flask (people STILL do this), or even the world's third favourite character actor making baking easier, the Dymo is a tool of design for everybody. An advocate of clarity and a positive, problem solving machine which makes people engage in creative thought. And for that, I salute it. And so does Chris (I get to call him that).

...my M&S hard-to-selection box

When eating a selection box of chocolates, isn't it nice to refer to the little menu card, or the picture on the side of the box, to let you know what you're about to sink your teeth into? They're fair warning - like those counterfeit pictures of moribund hot food above the checkout at your local fast food joint. So what do you do when you are gifted Marks & Spencer's The Big Selection? You play Russian roulette. And yes, the yellow to brown gamut - six separate varieties therein - contain the coffee and orange creams. Good luck with that.

...parking ballet

Christmas, if nothing else, is two things; busy and over. It's the former which leads me on to my latest trip to user interface town, via the A27 and into Brighton City College car park. Or rather, nearly not.







I've parked in their Pay & Display car park many times before, and had interesting run-ins with the taciturn little pay box who was often too worthy to accept my pounds (its method for sizing misshapen coins was more accurate than a NASA micrometer, blithely rejecting at whim). So when I got to the barrier this Christmas, ready to park-and-shop, I was rather excited to be sidled up to a shiny, proud new entry machine ready to let me in.

There was a whole pile of cheaply printed ticker-tape plastered all over it, but like any user, I thought, 'I know how this works, DURH, thanks #sarcasm', and promptly started pumping in my coinage - only to be promptly rejected. One by one. Just like old times.

Of course, first impression was that it's broken. Second impression was it can't be. It's new. The stickers on it, however, held the clues. And by the state of their positioning, they really were more like clues than the intended instructions. It took a little de-constructing, but I got there in the end, made my entrance and parked up. I was surprised at how empty it was for Christmas - in contrast, the car park opposite had two queues for entry. But soon I understood why. I witnessed the next happy customer run the gauntlet with the new pay machine, their coins being rejected, and saw them give up, assuming it was broken. I went to tell them it was working, but they'd already driven off.

Dear reader, do you want to see why they drove away? Of course you do. Pretend you're in your Datsun Cherry, window wound down, Lady GaGa (ironic remix) playing on the stereo, coins in hand, and drive up to this...

If you didn't know where to look first or what to do next (apart from use instinct and start throwing coins in the slot) I'm hardly surprised. It's information overload. Many messages all jostling for your attention, with differing type treatments set at disparate point sizes. The machine is simply asking to be ignored. It's like the audience shouting at a contestant on The Generation Game, a cacophony of guidance drowned out by the collective hubub. It needs the game show host, one constant element of authority, to step in with a clear unequivocal message and help guide you on to the prize.

Messages need order for them to successfully convey the point they're making, and the more complex the message, the more room there is to fall over. Enter our friend information hierarchy.

You will have already met her. She puts large headings in newspapers, captions pictures, numbers pages, and helps you know what to read next. She also puts navigation at the top of a Amazon.com, and guides your eyes through a page of merchandise, the info about a product, and nudges you to an easily spotted 'Add to Cart' button. In fact, she's everywhere. When clear, she's helping us on our way up motorways, through airports, down shopping aisles, and on to parties. For example, the information hierarchy on a flyer for a party can be as simple as:

Gary's Awesome Party
8pm-3am
6th June
Room7, Town Hall, Colchester

However, things can get trickier when Ms hierarchy isn't being totally clear. Lets go to a different party:

Fancy dress!

Marek's SURPRISE Pixel Party
MARIO BROS  s p e c i a l   g u e s t
7 til late, BRING BOOZE
8-10 Food served
RSVP to mark@email.com
T h e    K i n g ' s   A r m s ,   L o n d o n

Now we face some variables which need explaining and instantly uncertainty creeps in:

Does Marek know it's a surprise?
What's the fancy dress code?
7AM or PM?
What is late?
Will there be veggie food available?
Which King's Arms in London - is that actually the party location?
Is the 'mark' email address a spellcheck of Marek?

With homespun creativity thrown in - different point sizes, colours, fonts - it starts to read rather tricky, the recipient not knowing which details are most important or indeed relevant. A good hierarchy of information is our friend.

Back to the car park entry machine, and you can see how the instructions came to be so confused. I imagine the owner realising the machine wasn't signed properly out-of-the-box, so placed some of their own directions on it. Then came some on-the-fly results of user testing (car parkers), with follow-up stickers being placed to re-enforce what users (car parkers) were missing. One example of a skewed instruction is a duplicate sticker placed larger to try and compensate for the previously placed smaller version, creating an unnecessary layer of visual noise.

To be fair, there ARE some complex messages to explain in a very tricky space - the customer's eligibility for parking outside of college hours being the most confusing. But even so, whenever an instruction is being created, the designer must be able to remove themselves from the task, and look at it dry, see it from the user's perspective, and ask themselves 'Can I understand this?'.

I've created a version that I, as a driver, would like to use myself, putting all the information in a logical hierarchy which I think any driver can decipher quickly and easily. I've taken into account the tools the designer had to work with, using the same sized stickers, typeface, font point sizes and colours, and retouched the original photo with my version of how the entry machine instructions should, in my opinion, be marked up. Here's the result...

If this version was employed by the owners, I'd be willing to bet a year's free entry that they would have more happy parkers.

UPDATE
I used the car park again on Saturday and the machine's stickering was unchanged. Sad to say the confusion remains; I helped on person enter as I was leaving the car park on foot, and another as I was returning to my car.

...forming an orderly queue

If nothing else, we are told, us Britons are the best queuers in the world. It's part of our DNA. The technology in our head is that of a homing pigeon. When our nature spots a queue, our nurture has to work double hard to not let us join it. Regardless of the fact we all seem to really appreciate standing in line, the Post Office - the bastion which practically invented queueing, has gone and laughed in our faces – its OWN face even – by reinventing the queue. I say reinvent, but if you enjoy waiting 10 minutes in an un-orderly fashion for something you've just purchased, then Argos got there a couple of decades earlier.

Not all Post Offices have this new system, but my local branch in Eastbourne does. If you haven't seen it yet, here's how it works:

• Upon entering, you're confronted with a touchscreen machine. Sometimes a friendly member of staff accompanies the machine.
• You choose between two options: counter services or bureau de change.
• You take a ticket with a number on it; your position in the queue.
• You take a seat and await your number being called out by a female computer voice.

So, you see, the system is very similar to Argos. However, the difference being at Argos it's really, really annoying, but at the Post Office, it's great. Why is this? Simple. At the post Office, the customer is awaiting a service which one can bail out on at any time. We're the master of the situation, and people just LOVE control. However, at Argos, you've already queued once and paid for the item you're waiting for; queueing is the part of the leg work which garners reward, so to make you wait any longer feels like a liberty. Control is taken from us and we wait, prone, for our little boxed item to get spat out of the chute for collection.

The beauty of the Post Office is they have recognised the shift in today's society, how our behaviour and habits have changed and, in turn, adapted the model of how the customer-facing side of a town centre Post Office functions. Where a traditional queue once worked when people were more accustomed to interacting with one another, bumping into a neighbour and passing the time chatting, the queue today is eerily silent. Time stands still as we stand there waiting with nothing to do. The queue is emphasised, its length a reminder of how long the guy is taking sending four eBay parcels at window number twelve. Silence. Frustration. Negative focus. What's more, you're locked in. It's dead time. Wasted time. If i were a horse and you a betting type of person, then the odds on me trotting on elsewhere and being left long in the face are, I don't know, 3-1 favourite. However the new system changes all this.

The Post Office now appears to be a little hive of activity. Once you take your ticket, there are comfy red seats, smartly positioned at 45 degree angles to break any notion of queueing. Whilst you're waiting, you can kill time and take advantage of the many other services the Post Office provides, look at gifts, packaging, greetings cards, buy a scratch card at a separate counter. You're not tied down and this has been recognised. Impulse purchases are a real possibility rather than an awkward situation waiting to happen. Where DVDs were once harboured within the queueing barrier at crotch level, they're free to be perused as you wait your turn to be served.

Another smart move is the 'Banking' section. An area dedicated to the Post Office's many finance related products – mortgages, loans, savings etc. – is now redesigned like a privacy room in a bank. It actually feels like they're taking your money seriously. Whether the average postage stamp-buyer consciously acknowledges this, the semiotics won't fall under their radar. We'll quickly forget how it used to be (with old Mr Trunky in line peering over your shoulder when you're trying to talk discreetly about your bottom line) and rightly so. It's a clever, welcome service in a time when everybody is looking after their money.

So, with queueing 2.0 in live beta mode,  I think the feedback will be good. My only reservation whilst in store was what would happen if you missed your place in the numerical line? I asked the nice lady at the counter about this and she said "We have to call the number three times, but we usually only need two. If nobody comes up, it's probably because they've left."

Maybe they went to Argos?

"If you missed your turn, you take another ticket".

Makes sense to me. Just like a good old fashioned queue.

...public inconvenience

...washing your hands

Within the walls of Park Guell in Barcelona - if you cross their palms with silver - you can wander around the house where Gaudi took residence whilst the park was created. No flash photography please. Whilst taking in the self-guided tour, you can bear witness to Gaudi's Toilet, and quietly wonder to yourself how much of his work could have been conceived right there atop the less than majestic white porcelain. Toilets and inspiration. They're unconventional yet formidable bedfellows. Like recycling bins and public car parks. Or Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee. Both function perfectly on their own merits, but when put together, magic happens. Now where's my shoehorn

It was within the four walls of a car park public toilet that I found my inspiration for a little User Interface discussion on hand washing facilities. Not exactly on par with conceiving the Segrada Familia, I know, but the subject does cover cleanliness. And you know what cleanliness is bedfellows with? Godliness! Enter the magic...

Public toilet hand washing is a funny old experience. It's a moment when there's nothing else one would rather do in the world than eradicate the grim invisible funk of a thousand stranger's germs, but often can't. There's usually no soap, hot running water is a luxury, and good luck if you don't actually want to dry those hands on yourself. But what if the people who owned the convenience really did have your best interests at heart? They wanted to lay on all the hand washing paraphernalia you need to make it quick and pleasant, and what's more, IDIOT PROOF! Who WOULDN'T wash their hands? It sounds amazing!

Welcome to the 'WasH2o-3000' "It WANTS to clean your hands" (I made that name and slogan up, but if you're looking to go into this line of business, be my guest). It's a hole in the wall that does everything you can actually do yourself, except does it for you. Automatically. My first impressions were that i'd rather do it myself, but mustn't grumble, there's someone at the adjacent machine getting involved, so why not?

I step up to the ergonomic moulded plastic hole in the wall and like anyone, I take just a precursory glance at the pictograms whilst simultaneously attempting the task (literally) at hand. Both hands enter the hole in what feels like the natural, assumed correct position, in the centre. I look at the instructions again and a centrally placed arrow pointing down confirms this.

Squirt. The handwash is delivered but misses my hands. Bother.

Now here's some water coming out to mix with the soap which I don't have.

Ah, okay. I think I get it. There appears to be a motion sensor involved. I remove my hands and put them back in the hole again to trigger more soap.

Oh, no no no NO. Wrong move! It's the hot air's turn to impress; do have some hot air sir, to dry those delicate hands.

On my left, there's another happy user up to his wrists in bathroom technology. Except he's really bamboozled. We'll call him Gary. I realise he's the same guy i saw standing there as when I walked in earlier. He's peck peck pecking away at the graphic of the soap with his index finger like there's no tomorrow. My user testing persona watches with interest for a while, and when I think 'you're not getting paid for this experiment' I interject suggesting that it responds by hand movement. Gary's still not 100 percent convinced as he attempts my suggested procedure.

You can totally understand why he was mashing the graphic, though. Touchscreen is so prevalent nowadays that it comes as no stretch of the imagination that the toilet, if not using the most up-to-the-minute technology, would employ a hidden button system under the plastic of this 'futuristic' washing device. And the particular sequencing of the pictograms, 1 2 3, also preys on our instinctive 'I push this here to make that go there to make this thing come out here' understandings. Also, many other objects and interfaces we react with today rely on neat little icons to denote their application or function - think ticket machines or iPhone - and it's something we're all getting quite accustomed to. A couple of times recently I've witnessed someone at a vending machine, pressing inert pictograms to make it function. Are they daft? No. Its just a symptom of our emerging expectations of how the world around us works in 2010. So now when it comes to designing something like an automatic hand washing machine, we need to take a wider view of the schematics rather than focusing on the instructions.

In this case, the design is lead by the assumption the machine will function perfectly for a passive user; we'll follow the instructions, liquid soap will land in our hands, water will flow to wash away the soap, air will dry us, and we will stand there letting it happen. But as user testing has revealed, when something doesn't work in the way we expect - when we're faced with an immediate problem - we'll want to try to immediately solve it. When there's no direction, we experiment, we improvise. We're doers! As soon as we break out of the machines presupposed 'user flow', the whole system can collapse. In this case, a simple yet crucial factor lead to the function to fall down and, in turn, caught Robert out. Sorry, caught Gary out (I'm terrible with names). It ran out of soap.

As with all systems, whether mechanical or social, it only takes one simple blip to create a failure: it's only a tiny piece of rubber which causes the brakes to fail; forgetting to carry the 1 spoils the whole spreadsheet; a simple pocket call starts the family feud. You get what I'm saying.

Wanting to catch the failure, I used my machine again to examine its cycle. Yes, Hand movement triggers soap. A timer then lets you rub it in before the water flows. The water is also timed to switch off before the drier begins. Now in drying mode, the timed element is no longer a factor and it becomes a drier which stays on for as long as you're flapping your hands around underneath. More can go wrong than I thought, and I became aware of the scenario Gavin ... Gary? was battling.

With the machine out of soap and no way of alerting you to the fact, when the water flows, there's a strong chance you'll change your mind about how it works. You'll assume you missed something. So when you think on your feet and start pressing buttons that don't exist, it can really discombobulate you when the drier starts up and cuts out very quickly. It would feel as if you have no control over the task at hand, which in turn, bothers us. Frustrates us. And of course, when the cycle begins again, that short pause when the soap should arrive then leads you to believe it has a sketchy sensor, furthermore shaking you're beliefs of how the object in front of you works. Misbehavior breeds mistrust, and this is damaging for the product, the brand, and furthermore, the manufacturer.

A couple of suggestions which I think would aid user flow.

Make the soap visible (like many regular washstands). If you can see there's no soap, you'll better understand why the machine is behaving the way it is. If the soap can't be made visible, have an indicator telling us when its run out - like any other vending machine would. If the machine indicates putting your hands in the middle, make sure the soap is delivered in the middle - this broke the exercise for me. Usually the simplest solution in the design phase solves the complex problem.

I left Gary to it in the end and was left wondering how much resource gets wasted by the learning curve of using the machine. And also left drying my hands on my clothes as usual. My drier had a sketchy sensor.

...avoiding DIY

...hands that do dishes

Washing up the dishes the other day, I was pondering the Fairy Liquid bottle in front of me on the windowsill. It's one of those limited edition affairs, with retro packaging to celebrate the brand's 50th anniversary, reverting to the original design a lot of British households, detergent fans and bubble enthusiasts will be familiar with: White and cylindrical with flexo-printed dark green graphics. Vintage. A design classic.  Up there, I'd say, with Marmite, Colman's Mustard, Lyle's Golden Syrup and Tunnock's Caramel Wafers. That's the reason I bought it, really. It's just so NICE. So very nice, in fact, it let me in on a few truths about the power of marketing over function and vice-versa.

The design of this promotional pack has been rewound several decades (somewhere between way-back-when and yesteryear). It looks all very true to the period and yet there are some modern elements they've left in; two opposing indentations for grip, and the de rigueur non-drip cap. It's a sensible decision by the manufacturer to keep these attributes, as they don't detract from the overall authentic appearance and would, more importantly, be a detrimental omission for the consumer who has come to appreciate and expect these useful features. But in the process, look at what it tells us. The bottle is pared down to its most basic, usable form: Liquid to wash dishes; bottle to hold liquid; grip to hold bottle; cap to contain liquid. And that's it. That's all you need. After all these years and advances in production, all we've gained is a smart cap, a couple of dents and some nostalgia. So why is the modern bottle so different to its great grandfather?

Looking at both modern and classic bottles, comparatively they couldn't be more different. Firstly, the modern bottle is colourful and (armchair psychologists unite), we can all agree how humans warmly - or coldly - respond to hues and shades we come into contact with. A powerful device which drives sales (think Blueberry iMac). Secondly, the shape of the modern bottle is flat, wide and at first glance appears ergonomic, to help us hold the thing, making it easier to handle. And yet from a user's perspective, the classic bottle, with it's grippy-dents, proves otherwise. We have just been sold into the modern bottle.

Of course, there is also an evolution of a product to consider - the different 'flavours' (scents, anti-bacterial properties, hypoallergenic and mild formulations etc.), subtle shape changes of the packaging as each relaunch demands a little 'refresh', and advances in labelling technology which allows superior quality printing on more unusual substrates (such as plastics). But I'd say the shape has a lot more to do with making the product as physically wide as possible to aid brand visibility at point of sale and to stick the pretty label on. At a pinch, you may get more into a container for transit and storage, in turn lowering unit costs, but ultimately it's the marketing which sells the item, and a 'vanilla' white opaque bottle, just wouldn't sell in a modern market. Which brings us full circle. Because what would normally be a hindrance in shifting washing up liquid - a bottle that doesn't look the part or invoke feelings of confidence in what's inside - has instead become its USP and invokes feelings of warmth for a product which we're being reminded in this marketing push, is a brand leader we have trusted for for 50 years. Even the iconic baby on the bottle is flipped around, semiotically telling us a precious infant is happy to take that step backwards, so goodness gracious, why aren't YOU already? So hooray! Let's celebrate!

And that's exactly what I did in buying this retro Fairy Liquid. Now I'm making crazy bubbles, the bottle isn't slipping from my grip, and the last drip isn't running down the side. That's some usability testing right there, and the results are in. Boo to the modern bottle.