Ask Slashdot: When Is the User Experience Too Good?

gadzook33 writes "I had an interesting experience at work recently. A colleague suggested during a meeting that we were building something that would make it far too easy for the customer to perform a certain task; a task that my colleague felt was deleterious. Without going into specifics, I believe an apt analogy would be giving everyone in the country a flying car. While this would no doubt be enjoyable, without proper training and regulation it would also be tremendously dangerous (also assume training and regulating is not practical in this case). I retorted that ours is not to reason why, and that we had the responsibility to develop the best possible solution, end of story. However, in the following days I have begun to doubt my position and wonder if we don't have some responsibility to artificially 'cripple' the solution and in doing so protect the user from themselves (build a car that stays on the ground). I do not for a second imagine that I am playing the part of Oppenheimer; this is a much more practical issue and less of an ethical one. But is there something to this?"

I assume...

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume you work for Zynga?

like Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure you want to delete that file?

When is the user experience too good?

[David Gould]

Since 1984.

this

[Joe_Dragon]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDv0W3peMxM [youtube.com]

Re:I assume...

[DickBreath]

> I assume you work for Zynga?

When he makes a statement like:

I have begun to doubt my position and wonder if we don't have some responsibility to artificially 'cripple' the solution and in doing so protect the user from themselves

That tells me he should consider working for Apple.

Re:I assume...

[interkin3tic]

No, he works for a company which makes sex simulator videogames. He has a responsibility to make sure the human race keeps breeding.

Relevant saturday morning breakfast cereal. [smbc-comics.com]

Re:Too good? I think not

[fahrbot-bot]

What if the ability to do X harmed others?

That responsibility/consequence fall to the user, not the tool used.

• User: "Computer, detonate the warhead."
• Computer: "This will result in destruction and many deaths. Are you sure you want to do this?".
• User: "Yes."
• Computer: "Are you really sure?"
• User: "Yes."
• Computer: "Are you really, really, REALLY sure?"
• User: "Yes."
• Computer: "Target out of range."

Re:I assume...

[hackula]

After you hit the usage cap on the sex bot, it starts crying and asking you why you don't ever want to talk about having kids.

Re:I assume...

[maroberts]

+5 INFORMATIVE? What do you people do in your free time?

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