Interactions - January/February 2009

were able to enlist otherwise sensible people to their cause escapes me: Were they bribed?

Ever make a telephone call and wonder if anything was happening? Silence. No clues. So you hang up and try again. Some people complained that without sounds, they could not tell if the system was working. The machines got really annoyed. “We can’t win,” they exclaimed. “People complained about noisy telephone circuits, so we went to great effort to make them completely silent, and then they complained about that. People complain about the noise when it is there and about the silence when it’s not. We can’t win.”

So the machines made the lines perfectly silent and then reintroduced noise. But they showed their disdain for the process by calling it “comfort noise.” Comfort noise? What an insult. I call it meaningful feedback. You know, when you talk to someone, you expect them to listen and to show it by nodding, saying “yes” or “umm,” or doing something to show they are still alive, still listening. What’s this “comfort” stuff? It’s not comfort—it’s essential.

But once the machines got going, they kept at it. Ever hear of a “confidence monitor”? Whenever I give talks to large audiences, I face the audience, usually with bright lights blinding me so I can’t see them. When I show pictures, I can’t see them, either, because they are projected somewhere behind me. Seems like a number of people complained that they needed to be able to see the pictures they were projecting, so machines placed themselves as computer

display screens on the stage between the speaker and the audience. Sometimes they are on the floor of the auditorium just in front of the first few rows, sometimes on a big screen at the back of the auditorium. I find that they provide valuable feedback, letting the speaker see what the audience sees without turning around. Useful, valuable. So why am I complaining? Because of the way they label themselves: “Confidence monitors.” Confidence? Whose confidence? The labels assume speakers are quivering idiots, petrified on the stage, and if only they could see the pictures that they were talking about, they would have confidence. Bah.

Yes, as a speaker I lack confidence—confidence in the machines. I don’t for one minute believe that all my pretty pictures are actually going to show up on the screen. I’ve given up trying to show videos: They work only during practice. During the real talk, they are apt to stutter and crash. Yeah, I need confidence; I need confidence that the machines are working right. Come on, why do you have to be so demeaning? Call it feedback. Call it reassurance. Call it trust. But don’t call it comfort noise or confidence monitors, or idiot proofing, or foolproofing. Show us some respect! We are people.

What about the irate woman? What has she done to deserve such treatment? Nothing, nothing at all. The paper ticket that had been inserted into the machine didn’t come out again. Not her fault, as even engineers will tell you. The next peeve on the machines’ list, just after their dislike of people, is paper handling. They just can’t move

paper about reliably and efficiently, especially things like tickets that their owners have touched. People don’t have any trouble with these things, but machines can’t manage. So what do machines do? They don’t say, “I’m sorry, but I’m kind of clumsy around paper.” No, never in a million years. They blame us. They issue strong warnings: Don’t touch the paper, put it in pockets, spill drinks on it, or worst of all, fold. “Do not fold, mutilate, or spindle,” went the saying several decades ago, even though nobody even knew what “spindle” meant. “Oh,” they add, “and don’t use paper when there is high humidity.” In other words, we should just keep our hands off of paper altogether. Paper is for use by machines, and once people touch it, the machines grow irate. It never occurs to a machine that the problem might be theirs. Oh no. It’s us pesky people who are to blame.

It is time to socialize our interactions with technology. Sociable machines. Basic lessons in communication skills. Rules of machine etiquette. Machines need to show empathy with the people with whom they interact, understand their point of view, and above all, communicate so everyone understands what is happening.

Why do you do this to us? What did we ever do to you?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Don Norman wears many hats, including cofounder of the Nielsen Norman group, professor at Northwestern University, and author. His latest book is The Design of Future Things. He lives at jnd.org.