Hi, I’m Matt Balara.I solve design problems with my head.

The other day I let off some steam about the extremely poor experience of trying to book an appointment at the Genius Bar. After 8 attempts, each time clicking through the same 6 screens (because there’s no other way), and an ever-increasing level of frustration, I got an appointment for Sunday morning. I got up early Sunday and headed downtown, fully expecting the worst.

Photo by bernardoh

When I told the girl at the front door that I had an appointment, she checked her iPhone, found my name, and with a smile she sent me up to the second floor. There, another color coded girl (the “ushers” wear orange, the geniuses wear blue) checked her iPhone, asked me to take a seat and said it’d be just a minute. A simple but beautifully designed screen behind the geniuses showed me my own name, reassuring me that I was next in line. The smooth friendliness made it rather difficult for me to maintain my irate customer stance, but I set my jaw, determined to give the so-called genius a piece of my mind if he hesitated for even a second to replace my iPhone.

Luckily for Tom, my genius, he didn’t hesitate at all. In fact, upon seeing the missing button on the top of my phone, he said, “let’s get that replaced then, shall we?” I blinked, nodded, and two signatures and 3 minutes later I had a brand spanking new iPhone in my pocket. Tom gave me exactly what I’d been hoping for (but assuming wouldn’t happen) and was extremely friendly through out our brief transaction.

The Weakest Link

Our experience with the brands we love (and hate) is a chain of mini-experiences:

• Advertising links to…
• In store or web site purchase links to…
• The box links to…
• Unboxing links to…
• First time use links to…
• Learning & regular use links to…
• Customer service links to…
• Repair or replacement links to…
• Next purchase links to…

Any brand that can construct a solid chain from beginning to end, has a good chance of linking the end to the beginning and creating a permanent loop of consumption, something that Apple’s become pretty good at.

Expectations

Apple’s advertising, packaging, product design and so many other links in the chain have always been such good experiences for me, so I was shocked at the problems I encountered trying to book a genius bar appointment. If DELL or Microsoft gave me those kinds of problems, it would confirm my opinion of them and would therefore, in a way, be more bearable. But when Apple drops the ball I’m shocked. They’ve trained me to expect perfect experiences as my right as an Apple customer. Tom the genius restored my faith, but the hassle of booking an appointment to see him is now part of the chain in my memory.

Other than that, the repair or replacement link is the absolute worst part of the chain to disappoint a customer. If I have your broken product in hand, my expectation in that moment is that you suck. There’s no other point in the chain where it’s more important to prove the opposite.

A Simple Fix

Keeping all of this in mind, it’s not really a big challenge to improve the appointment booking process without changing anything but the copy. If Apple were to take this “piss of” screen:

And simply change the text:

…and give me the ability to jump straight to the page and check back - without clicking through six time-wasting screens over and over again - I’d be a very happy customer, and Apple’s otherwise perfect chain would be a perfect circle.

What do you think? Leave a comment…

Stiffness and more than a little pain in my neck and shoulders convinced me this week to order the necessary hardware to get my laptop up off the desk and help me improve my posture. Being in no small part a bit of an Apple fanboy, I ordered one of their beautifully designed extended keyboards.

The keyboard arrived this morning, and I was reminded again—from the design of the outside of the box, to the experience of opening it, to the minimalistic eloquence of the object’s design—that Apple are the uncontested masters of experience design. I mused briefly on how far behind them every other company I know of is, and clapped myself on the shoulder for being a discriminating customer with taste.

Fast forward to lunch. I pick up my iPhone, tap something into it, and go to push the little button on top that locks the screen.

It’s gone.

The ingredients of experiences are feelings, and this is a story about feelings. That button seems to have just fallen off. I’m a little surprised and disappointed, but I’m not fanboy enough to expect that Apple’s products are indestructible. I’m willing to forgive. “No big deal,” I think, “I’ll just go down to the Optus (my mobile provider) shop and get them to replace it.” Considering Optus’ reputation for service I wasn’t surprised that they palmed the whole thing off to Apple in about 5 seconds.

At this point I was, oddly enough, relieved that I didn’t have to deal with Optus fools who never give me the help I’m after. Instead I had a perfect excuse to enter the beautiful Apple Store down on George St. and I was looking forward to them handing over my shiny new replacement iPhone.

To get a date with an Apple Store “Genius”, you book an appointment online. So off I went to Apple’s lovely web site, clicked around a bit (Support > Repair > Enter serial number > Make an appointment), and landed on this screen:

Ahhhh, just the kind of design I like: clear options, no fluff, and an overall feeling of simplicity. Lovely. I was pleased to be here, and optimistic about wrapping up this appointment business quickly. I’ve got an account at Apple, so I clicked “Member”. After two screens they want my membership number for something I’ve never heard of called “One to One”. No explanations. I feel a bit stupid and confused as I return to the screen above and start again. Let’s click “Guest” and see what happens.

Sign in, easy, quickly done. I like these kinds of tasks, this is obviously where I want to be. Next!

I obviously want technical support. Click! Now I’m getting somewhere! Maybe I was stupid to click “Member” back there, but let’s forget about that shall we? I’m smart now and my new iPhone can’t be far away!

iPhone of course! Click! Rolling along now, almost done!

A layer warns me to update my software and backup my data before I come to the store. Prudent advice. I’m not very interested right now to be honest, but it does heighten my optimism —if they’re telling me what to do before coming to the store, then I’m almost there, right? Continue! Click!

Uh. Wait a sec.

Confused. Also disappointed but mostly just confused. Surely after asking for my info, and even instructing me what to do before I come to the store, surely after all of that it must be possible to get an appointment? And if there’s no appointment, surely Apple wouldn’t just slam the door in the face of a customer with a problem? Even if they were to offer me an appointment in two weeks or two months time, it’d be better than this. Must just be a bug. Surely. Or maybe I did something wrong?

There are only two options: “Done”, which I’m not, and “Exit”, which most certainly won’t get me what I want. They might as well reduce it to a big “Piss off” button. For lack of any more sensible option, I click “Done”, which brings me back to the support start page. I dig the serial number out again, click click type type click click. Perhaps I’m in denial, but I’m determined to get an appointment.

Imagine calling tech support, and after a couple of questions the operator states flatly, “I can’t help you,” and hangs up. This is what just happened to me. Twice. No help. No option how to continue. Just a refusal to give me an appointment. This is what we call angry. I try it all one more time for good measure, which only makes me angrier.

So I ask my friends if they know what’s up. One of them replies, “it always says that.” With that I decided the whole thing’s hopeless, and made a plan to put on my irate face and drop by the Apple Store (without an appointment) to make the life of some clerk (they’re obviously not Geniuses) uncomfortable until I get my replacement.

And this morning I was in love with Apple.

Update: I did eventually get an appointment and everything went great. Which somehow makes this experience even more disappointing.

What do you think? Leave a comment…

Those of you who don’t live in the design world or aren’t Apple Believers might not have heard of Dieter Rams, the world-famous designer of the world-famous Apple Look… ah, urm, wait a sec.

Dieter Rams is actually a kick-ass industrial designer mostly known for the products he designed for Braun from the 50’s onwards.

Jonathan Ive is the guy responsible for the Apple Look.

I’ve been aware that Jonathan Ive is a bit of a Rams fan ever since I saw the iPhone calculator (open it next to Rams’ calculator design from 1978), but, not being that familiar with Rams’ work, I’d always thought this was a one-time-only tribute to Braun’s designer. The gizmodo post “The future of Apple is in 1960s Braun”, and especially the images of Rams designs standing next to Ive designs made it clear that Ive has been inspired by Rams in almost everything he’s ever done for Apple, and hell, inspired may be too polite a word.

Braun calculator photo (right) from photonium’s photostream.

To be honest, I’ve been thinking of Mr. Ive as an innovative designer for so long that I’m not sure where to go with my reaction to these overwhelming similarities. It’s a never-ending discussion which I’ve started before: where is the border between inspiration and outright theft? Should Apple products, widely known for innovative design, better be known as a Braun rip-offs? If you were Dieter Rams, would you want to whup Jonathan Ive’s ass? I’m mulling all these things over, and would definitely be interested in your opinion.

Other than the whole rip-off subject, one very worthwhile part of the gizmodo article was Rams’ “Ten Commandments on Design”. Some are surely redundant, but it’s definitely food for thought for any designer. For more detail on them, see Rams’ Wikipedia page.

1. Good design is innovative.
2. Good design makes a product useful.
3. Good design is aesthetic.
4. Good design helps us to understand a product.
5. Good design is unobtrusive.
6. Good design is honest.
7. Good design is durable.
8. Good design is consequent to the last detail.
9. Good design is concerned with the environment.
10. Good design is as little design as possible.

Quite a list, and some of it certainly debatable, but his three word motto is on my wavelength (and far easier to remember):
“Less, but better.”

What do you think? Leave a comment…

Next month I’ll be in New York for the Future of Web Design, and what does a geek who’s on the wrong side of the pond (when it comes to gadgets) think when he thinks “New York”? Well, I’m a photo geek first and foremost, so I think D300 of course, but not far behind that I think “iPhone”.

The lovely little toy is going for $399 in the states. Although amazon.de somewhat hastily posted it back in January for €999, it will apparently cost €399 when it comes out over here on November 9th. This side of the pond does have it’s advantages, namely $399 = €285 and makes New York + iPhone purchase a very good deal, right? Well, an American iPhone is locked into the AT&T network. Think about that. Imagine a car that only runs if you fill it up at a Shell station. Now imagine that Shell doesn’t exist in Europe.

Which led me down the dark and narrow alley of iPhone unlocking research…

Any wall a geek can build, an army of geeks can tear apart within a day. I could buy an iPhone, unlock it, and use it over here. However I’d never be able to update the software (Apple updates “brick” unlocked iPhones, turning them into pretty junk) and you’ll violate your warranty, but you can use any provider you want. The legality of “bricking” is pretty questionable, but I’m in no position to sue Apple. It’s also not quite clear if Apple intended to brick unlocked phones, but that’s beside the point.

Not being a true über-geek, and not stupid, I probably won’t buy an iPhone (at least not in the U.S.) and unlock it, even if it’d save me more than €100. I like software updates and warranties. But it does piss me the hell off to think that Apple — a company I generally love to the point of irrationality — will blackmail a loyal fan into buying out of his exisiting mobile contract (not cheap), force me into a contract with T-Mobile although I don’t want one, and will render a device I’d pay $399 for useless if I enable it over here and update its software, which is my right if the damn thing’s mine, isn’t it?

Is anyone out there in a position to sue Apple? I reckon they’ve got it coming this time.

What do you think? Leave a comment…

There aren’t many blogs today in my Newshutch that aren’t doing something to accelerate the MacWorld Expo hype. Never one to passively watch a bandwagen roll by, me and my two cents are jumping on. Read on…

What do you think? Leave a comment…