Nielsen highlights the 10 usability bloopers in film.
I am surprised I didn’t find it earlier. As a human computer interaction practitioner, I now am bothered by the glaring mistakes in film.
One thing that had always surprised me was how people remembered phone numbers so quickly. Tell Jack Bauer a 7 digit phone number once, and he’ll get it right away. He’ll be dialing that number an hour later, two hours later and even the whole day later. Without any rehearsal. While if someone told me a number, I’ll have to ask them to repeat it…not once, not twice, but thrice…or even more. If I didn’t have paper or some other recording material. Then I’ll forget it not in 10 minutes or 5 minutes, but 10 seconds after being told.
Nielsen says that movies encourage people to think that they should be like the characters onscreen—to perfectly get the interface the first time…and everything should work perfectly.
But it’s all entertainment. Right?
Of course it’s entertainment… the entertainment value of 24 drops if we hear, “Chloe, damnit, I forgot the number.” every 5 minutes. Yes he’d be more human but that’s not why we are watching the show. We’re watching the show to see a story unfold, and every moment spent making characters more human takes away from that.
If you ask me, it was a slow usability week when he wrote that. But then, I’ve been thinking that about a lot of his articles lately.
That’s not really fair either. All the numbers he has to remember are 555-8904 (Ned Flanders of the Simpsons) and the likes of that. How hard is it to remember a ‘555’ number? TV isn’t supposed to give out real numbers. Interestingly, that is only 555-(0100-0199). All others could be real now.
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