Comparison
May 9th, 2008 by Ken HarrisThis week, I added a “remember me” checkbox to the clayv.com sign-in page. All the cool web pages have these: this gives you a persistent cookie so it automatically logs you in if you return, even if you’ve quit your browser since then. (Right now, ours lasts 2 weeks.) The goal: make it easier for you to stay logged in at clayv.com.
At a previous company I worked for, I was given the task of adding a feature to an internal app which would annoy the user after 15 minutes of inactivity, and end the user’s session after 30 minutes of inactivity. (Don’t get me started on how many managers it took to define “inactivity”.) This app had about 3 layers of setup you had to do before you could actually do what you wanted to, and “starting a session” was one of those. The theory (we were told) was that we had to make sure users were really really sure before making a change, and not simply that we were trying to make them forget why they started the app in the first place.
Of course, if you’ve done any usability testing, or even had to use such an app yourself, you can predict the result. People don’t like being annoyed, and people don’t like computers doing things to them (like closing their sessions) without being asked. And people are clever. So they add notes to the thing they’re working on, and get in the habit of making some trivial change to them every couple minutes. Clearly, another win for how computers make our lives easier. (Don’t worry: the app never shipped.)
Usability isn’t unique to ClayValet or even small companies, but it does show the huge difference in thought-processes between the two. We have no choice but to be as pleasant as possible, because it’s much easier to hit the Back button than it is to find a new job because an internal app sucks.
