Yesterday, I had an interesting day, where I got to see a number of small – but critical – parts of various peoples’ customer journeys that overlapped with mine. What was interesting was that each of the parts of the journey that caused stress and anxiety were parts that, when designing a journey from scratch, you would never expect to be an issue.
Scenario 1: The Technophobe User
I started my day queuing at a hospital to get x-rays (another story), which had a system whereby they took your form, a staff member gave you a pager to take to the waiting area, and then, when your buzzer vibrated, you had to go to a room just down the hall.
The lady in front of me was English, and in her mid 30s, and yet still could not understand what was going to happen when using this device, and where she should go when it did whatever it was going to do. Despite a lengthy explanation from the staff member, she looked decidedly uncertain at the prospect of it vibrating, even when the analogy of a mobile phone was made. When it finally did go off, she looked at it – confused – walked one way, then came back, and eventually went back to the desk for instructions again. Finally, she went to the right place, late for her X-Ray.
Scenario 2: The Unintuitive Button
The second scenario was something you would never think of as a major issue, but ended up causing an older lady a lot of stress. I was on a new East London overground train, sitting near the doors. The East London line is a strange line, as it feels like a Tube Train (it used to be), but works like an overground train, with passengers having to open the doors using buttons on the side.
The lady in question pressed the “open” button on the door as the train was stopping, but before the doors locks had been released by the driver. When they were released, the door did not open, because she had prematurely pressed the button. She was confused. She had pressed the open button, and the doors had not opened, so she started pressing the other button on the door, which was the close door button. The doors stayed closed.
Now, she was starting to panic with the thought the train was going to leave before she could get off, and was rapidly pressing the door close button. Fortunately, someone outside the train pressed the button for her, the doors opened, and she got out with a relieved sigh.
Incidentally, the doors closed without anyone needing to push a close button.
Created by Engineers, Used by Users
In both of these scenarios, it would seem logical to assume a user knows how a pager works, and that to open doors with an open and close button, you need to press the open doors button after the train has stopped. But how different users perceive their user experience is not how designers or engineers intend them to perceive it. Moreover, when redesigning an existing service, these may be the moments that are ignored and not thought through, because it is assumed they work just fine, thank you.
Observing the customer journeys of a range of customers, alternatively, can give amazing insights into simple changes to various experiences that can make someone’s journey so much more stress free and pleasant. Sometimes those changes may be very small. Simply having a way to demonstrate what the pager will do, and providing some better signage, would have put this patient’s mind at ease and kept her on time for her appointment. Allowing the “open” door button to be pressed before the stop, even if the door opening function is delayed until the driver actually releases it or the train is fully stopped at a station, would have kept this lady’s heartbeat in the safe zone.
It is the smallest parts of the journey that goes wrong, that customers remember most.
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