By Peter Cochrane, 14 April 2008 12:14
COMMENT
Written at London's Heathrow airport after a confused journey through the newly opened Terminal 5. Copy dispatched via a free wi-fi hotel service in Athens.
If I could be God for a day there are many things I would put right for humanity and planet Earth. Architects and designers of all kinds would be high on my list for urgent attention. How do so many of them get it so very badly wrong?
Suppose every architect had to live and suffer every aspect of their creations for at least three years before starting their next project.
Exclusive column: The Naked CIO
See what this CIO really thinksÂ…
The Naked CIO: Boardroom stereotypes
The Naked CIO: IT staff disloyalty
The Naked CIO: Cut the bull
The Naked CIO: Animal farm
The Naked CIO: Offshore - or off their trolley?
The Naked CIO: Shadow of the job axe
The Naked CIO: Identity crisis
The Naked CIO: Innovation - same old story
And suppose luggage designers had to travel a whole year non-stop with their own luggage, and ditto for the designers of electronic point of sale systems, mobile phones and security systems. These folks never seem to travel, live, sleep, do business, or serve customers with the stuff they design.
Over the past few weeks, Heathrow T5 has had so much bad press it has become a national embarrassment more quickly than anything I have ever witnessed.
I don't really see the need to add to the massive pile of invective to date but here are some basics. Elevators and escalators that don't work are inexcusable. We have been building such technology for more than 100 years and it is in everyday use planet-wide. It is a commodity product.
Then there is the basic signage that fails at every basic level to get passengers from the front door, through security and to their gate without confusion and the need to ask for directions.
And how about a PA system that renders announcements unintelligible. Who decided to put the speakers in the roof instead of at human ear level? I could go on.
Watch passengers struggling with their luggage for an hour and you have to ask, who designs this stuff, and did they ever travel anywhere? Then there are those hotel check-ins and supermarket tills that seem to require hundreds of keystrokes.
If only the interface designers sat on these desks for a month. After that experience I'm sure they would go back to the drawing board and do a much better job. Similarly, the designers of mobile devices that assume dainty fingers, 20:20 vision and, of course, perfect hearing.
It seems to be increasingly the case that great opportunities involving breathtaking technology get fouled up at the design stage. And all too often, it seems, people blame the technology rather than the implementation designer.
A simple solution to all this is obvious but something that seems to have been largely abandoned. Trials and tests with real live volunteers and actual customers to represent the depth and breadth of humanity are essential.
And of course this should be conducted before any large-scale rollout or service launch. It appears that this basic principle of getting it right seems to be increasingly abandoned.
In the case of T5, army personnel were used to test the terminal, and the opening day was organised as a big bang. But troops are used to following orders and acting in an orderly manner.
In contrast, getting tourists organised is like herding cats. And big-bang product and system launches are notorious for going badly wrong. The rest, as they say, is history.
A long time ago I ran into the basic principle of eating your own dog food. Today this translates into living and dying by your own systems and technology.
All I can say to designers is that you can learn an awful lot about your own fallibilities and misconceptions very quickly by suffering at you own hand.
Apart from watching and experiencing the work of others, it is the best method I know.
Comments
There are 12 comments. Join the discussion
1. Matt
Peter,
I can't help but notice a lack of any critisim here of the engineering trade at all, or are you bunching them in under the the title 'designers as a whole'?
Of all the critisims you make - and all of them justified - none of them comes under the direct remit of the architect: elevators - M&E engineers, PA systems - M&E/accoustic engineers, I could go on....
From the reports i've read about the problems with the baggage both here at silicon, BA and AJ, the initial reported failures lay not within the design but the lack of suitable training given to the staff, so perhaps more of a staff management/training/system problem?
It's also interesting to note that it's BA management who have held their hand up and taken responsiblity for the problems encountered thus far at T5. Imagine if all management consultants had to live with the systems they'd designed for three years...
2. Tele3dworld
Designers are to busy answering emails and filing for travel and expenses hese days. Ever since the demise of the secretary who organised your typing and travel arragements, designers can't concentrate on their real work anymore.
3. misceng
Peter has it right: "Trials and tests with real live volunteers and actual customers to represent the depth and breadth of humanity are essential."
This is particulary true with computer programs, which should never be released until a group who have never seen the software before each install and use the program without any guidance except the so-called help file. Only when all are successful is the program fit for release.
4. anonymous
But I remember reading that they were after volunteers to test things for weeks and week beforehand. What happened with this testing? It's inexcusable.
I also remember seeing the pictures on silicon.com of rows and rows of identical bags sitting in line for test check in. Good Lord. Why no skis, unwieldy over-weight bags or brown paper boxes of illegal bushmeat to test properly.
It absolutely beggar's belief they made such a complete and public mess of it, after banging the drum and blowing the trumpet fanfare of how great our new airport terminal is going to be
Heads should roll. BAA changing CEO at the same time as T5 opened was inexcusable. Ferrovial should be held to account for driving BAA into a cash crisis by off-loading their highly leveraged takeover onto the operating company, making saving money the prime purpose of day-to-day business.
5. anonymous
Just goes to prove that British managers don't understand technical management. They are so into talking things up without any real awareness of technology.
6. anonymous
How do designers get it so wrong? They compromise because at the end of the day the client is paying their food bill.
A great designer argues the design case - but great designers cost more than indifferent ones. Great managers know this and spend the extra money.
Indifferent managers cut design budgets, because they are under pressure to be seen to do well and budgets are very measureable - and what was originally designed to be a world-beater becomes yet another also-ran. It's all down to the bean-counters.
7. Rory Choudhuri
Just a minor addition: they did use 'normal' people in their testing. Two colleagues went for the day, a few weeks before opening - we spend a fortune with BA each year. My colleagues said that it was apparent that things weren't working too smoothly even then.
8. Peter Cochrane
Matt = Spot on - and I include all designers - and a lot are engineers. But engineers do tend to use their own stuff.
At T5 the staff associations and agencies pleaded with management not to go for a 'big bang' approach - but hey managers know best. And you are right re the technology - it was tested - but the SNAFU was in the inadequate staff training.
At the very least I hope people learn from this - can you imagine the 'cock-up' potential of the up coming London Olympics?
Hey, but don't worry, politicians and managers know best...
Peter
9. Peter Cochrane
Tele3dworld = What a whimpy exuse! Peter
10. Peter Cochrane
Anonymous
No nothing management talking things up - yep that seems to be standard now. And it is very fashionable to be ignorant it seems! Peter
11. Peter Cochrane
Anonoumous - ex indifferent designer
All my career i have found courage and tenacity have been vital requiremnents!
Peter
12. Peter Cochrane
Rory = Thanks for this. I don't class tourists as 'normal' by the way.
From an engineering standpoint I think I might have started with one plane load at a time and debugged the system whilst upsetting rather smaller numbers...
Peter