Preston Smalley
Message Phone Design Exercise:
"[Design] a smart telephone that incorporates a visual interface
for managing voice mail. The interface is displayed on a built-in, 4- by 5-inch,
color LCD screen…" "Create a believable, compelling design for the MessagePhone."
Research:
VisiBell (a fictional phone company) seeks to deliver a product
called MessagePhone that integrates a 4x5" LCD. While the problem statement
does not explicitly say whether this product is a desk phone or a portable
phone, for the purpose of this assignment we will assume the former since most
advanced phones are connected to office phone systems(e.g. PBX). If this were
a real project we would of course clarify with VisiBell what type of product
they had in mind. Therefore our market is corporate phone system purchasers
and our target user is the office voicemail user.
Usability Background:
Nearly all users of voicemail likely would agree with Jakob
Nielsen when he said:
"...you shouldn't be forced
to access [voicemail] by sitting through a long, linear recital of recorded
messages; scrolling through a visual listing of messages would be more efficient."
[1]
While a number of issues can be found with existing voicemail
through heuristic evaluation of it, AT&T Labs-Research through several
studies provides us with a more solid foundation from which we can build a
new design. The paper [2] presented at CHI 2000 offered
an in-depth analysis of a previous work study by AT&T [3]
on 782 active users of a typical voicemail system for 21 days.
The study identified four key user problems summarized here:
-
Scanning:
The ability to quickly
prioritize new messages and to locate saved messages. The linear nature
of existing voicemail makes this process difficult.
-
Information
Extraction: The process of extracting important contact information
from messages (e.g. Name, Phone) or determining intent and action items.
This often involves relistening to the same message.
-
Status Tracking:
Often times voicemail messages contain actions that the user must
follow up on (e.g. Call backs). However a typical voicemail system has
no way of informing users of unresolved action items short of them calling
the system back.
-
Archive
Management: Given their access strategies, most users' archives consist
of a backlog of undischarged messages as well as a store of saved valuable
messages. Therefore users must periodically go through and "clean-up".
Finally, we should remember that voicemail is a means
of communication and not an end in and of itself. In other words voicemail
should help people get their jobs done not create additional work for people
to use and maintain.
Interaction Framework Definition:
As a guiding principle, it is imperative that in improving
the management of voicemail we not degrade the user's ability to use the product
as a phone. If we break the basic interaction a user expects from a phone,
the improvements on the more complex features will be worthless. We will limit
the domain of this design to voicemail management and will assume that basic
features of the phone work as they do typically unless otherwise specified
(e.g. picking up the handset and punching 7 number keys places a call).
Typical User Scenarios:
Joe walks into his office in the morning and notices on his
MessagePhone that he has 2 new messages. He clicks the play button is prompted
for his password and the first message begins playing. Realizing it is an important
client he presses the "callback" button to re-dial the number immediately.
Once he's done with call, the phone notes that he called back and the date/time.
He decides to flag the message to follow-up later since he was only able to
get the client's voicemail.
After returning for her weekly sales meeting, Sally is pressed
for time. She notices that her phone has 4 new messages but she only wants
to hear them if they are from her important clients. She quickly scans the
list of messages, that based on Caller-ID, show her who has called and decides
they can all wait until later.
Harrison manages a real estate office and often gets voicemail
in regards to properties his agents are trying to sell. With MessagePhone he
is able to easily forward messages to the appropriate agent's personal voicemail.
His old phone system also allowed him to forward but he was never able to figure
it out.
Key Voicemail Use Cases:
-
Play new messages
-
View a list
of new messages (and the number of them)
-
View a list
of flagged messages (and the number of them)
-
Play selected
message
-
Delete message
-
Rewind message
(5 seconds, or all the way)
-
Advance message
(2 seconds)
-
Skip to the
next message (when playing linearly)
-
Flag a message
to be followed up
-
Mark a flagged
message completed
-
Call back message
sender
-
Add Phone Number
to Speed Dial or Phonebook
-
Change Voicemail
Options (Greeting, Name, Password)
Note that no "save" or "archive" use
case is listed above. Since there is no difference between previously listened
to messages and saved messages the distinction is removed. Status can be simplified
to "new", "flagged", and "old ".
Also the structure of the voicemail store will not have
any folders or areas and will instead opt for a single store. The introduction
of a storage structure reduces visibility of messages and adds a layer of abstraction
that is not necessary in this case.
We should remember that a user's goal is NOT to manage a
voicemail system but rather to communicate with others. The phone
and voicemail system should enable the user to achieve the goals of initiating
and responding to voice communications in a timely manner. Most people have
a job to do outside the telephone and so the quicker the phone can help them
get their communications done the sooner they get back to doing other work.
In brainstorming the general hardware interface of the phone
two models emerged:
 |
 |
| PHONE
A:
LCD Touch screen Phone
"Revolutionary" Approach
Pros:
- Elegant
and modern looking
- Flexible
user interface that is robust enough to handle additional tasks
such as contact management.
Cons:
- Dialing
the phone is difficult and may require additional steps
- Impossible
to dial without looking
- Necessary
to learn a new user interface (high cognative load)
- Fingerprints
on the screen unless a stylus was used which is awkward to use
in dialing a phone.
|
PHONE
B:
Traditional Desk Phone w/LCD
"Evolutionary" Approach
Pros:
- Known
and familiar phone user interface - does not break metaphor
- Flexibility
through function keys
- Perhaps
less costly than Phone A
Cons:
- Navigation
is limited to 4-5 function keys and the scrolling jog wheel.
- Not
as modern looking as Phone A
|
While Phone A definitely has some interesting potential Phone
B is the most viable as a product. By taking a more evolutionary approach current
users of phones can easily transition to the product without learning a whole
new user interface all at once. The more advanced voicemail management features
can be learned with time but the basic functionality of the phone is available
to the user instantly. Phone B also adheres closer to the original request
by VisiBell by delivering a phone that manages voicemail and not a "super phone".
Phone Overview:
The five colored function keys shown above correspond
to the colored button shown on the LCD screen. In this way the functions of
the buttons can be changed by the software but the association is closely tied
based on proximity and color. Also where appropriate the color of the key corresponds
with an action (e.g. red for delete and clear). When possible closely associated
keys on different screens should also share the same button, for example "dial"
and "call back" both share the green key. The Jog Wheel is used for
scrolling to select items in a list. This physical metaphor will hopefully
resonate with users better than a simple up and down buttons. The dialpad and
basic phone keys are identical to the typical desk phone as it is imperative
that anyone be able to walk up to the phone for the first time and dial.
When the phone is inactive for a period of time
(e.g. 10 minutes) it returns to its main screen shown above. In order to protect
the privacy of the voicemail user, by default, the phone will return to this
screen. Consequently when a user first walking into their office in the morning
their goal is to determine if there are important voicemail message or flagged
follow-up items. The above screen helps the user achieve his goals by providing
the summarized information they need to know, primarily if they have new or
flagged messages. Pushing the "View Voicemail" key will prompt the
user for their password and then the voicemail management screen (shown below)
will appear.
Above shows a sample of what the voicemail management
screen looks like. By presenting the phone number, receival information, and
indicating new messages, users are better able to "scan" for important
messages or retrieve past ones. The Action taken column aims to help with "status
tracking" another key user complaint with voicemail. The phone will keep
track of when phone numbers are called back, when messages are listened to
or shipped, and when they have been marked for follow-up. "Information
Extraction" is also minimized by providing the phone number and ability
to with one key press, call the person back. Note the simplified language used
on the received date, using today and yesterday when appropriate and otherwise
showing the day of the week instead of simply the date. The phone numbers listed
are based on Caller-ID, if no number is provided "Unknown" is shown instead.
Perhaps corporate phone system implementations might also show a name or extension
in addition to the phone number. See alternate
showing names included.
Screen while playing a message:
Once the user selects the message and clicks play
the following screen appears. It displays more detailed information about the
message and caller. A brief one week history of the caller is shown in order
to provide the user with a better context. This reflects the nature of many
voicemail users that end up following many voicemail threads often times never
connecting in a real-time conversation [3]. The length of
the message is also shown along with a spatial representation of where in the
message is currently being played. The Jog Wheel also functions as Reverse
and Advance.
Dialing Assist:
When a user starts to push the analog dialing
pad on the phone, the numbers appear on the LCD screen. They should be large
enough to read from a few feet away which is often the case in an office environment
(e.g. user is dialing a phone number that is on their computer). If the handset
is already picked up then once an adequate number of digits are present the
phone dials. However if the handset is in the holster, the user can use the
dial button shown below to initiate a speakerphone call. Also the backspace
key allows them to change a miss typed number and clear lets them start over
all together. The flag button also helps the user follow-up in the event the
line is busy or their contact person is unavailable.
On the screen during the phone call date and
time are shown since often that is handy during conversation. This screen can
also be used during the phone call to simplify historically challenging tasks
such as placing a call on hold, initiating a 2nd phone call, conference calling,
etc. While these would be handled in an eventual design, they are out of the
scope of this project.
Design Refinement:
Due to the limited scope of this assignment a detailed design
refinement is impractical since the interaction framework is not fully complete.
Ideally more detailed scenarios could be employed here to further refine the
design. A number of refinements occurred throughout the course of the design
I'd like to note.
Color-Keyed Function buttons: In order to better associate
the buttons with the descriptions on the LCD I decided to color-key them. In
doing so some of the button placements were reorganized so that the delete
and clear keys were located in the "red" position.
Additional Lines of Text: Initial designs only provided
enough room to view five messages. The AT&T usability study found that
people received 8.7 messages a day on average with power users at about 18.7
message per day. Therefore the number of messages the user could view at a
time needed to be increased. The existing design allows for 12 messages and
perhaps an option could allow users to shrink the font size down to display
even more.
Conclusion:
This assignment was interesting and challenging it that it
aimed to revisit a ubiquitous product that has not evolved much from its initial
design. I hope it offers an insight as to how I go about design. If this were
a real project I would create a prototype of the interface using HTML or Flash.
It would help us in walking through more detailed scenarios. I would be happy
to talk with you more about my design and design process.
Final thought... "Basically, the
problem is that the [phone] systems have more features and less feedback. Suppose
all telephones had a small display screen...." Donald A. Norman [4]
References:
1. Nielsen, Jakob. http://www.useit.com/papers/telephone_usability.html
2. Whittaker, Steve, et. al. "Jotmail: a
voicemail interface that enables you to see what was said". New York:
ACM Press, 2000.
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/332040.332411
3. Whittaker, Steve, Julia Hirschberg, and Christine
H. Nakatani. "All Talk and All Action: Strategies for Managing Voicemail
Messages". New York: ACM Press, 1998.
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/286498.286732
4. Norman, Donald A. "The Design of Everyday
Things" pp27-28. New York: Doubleday, 1988.
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