Bicycle Interface
This is my first day back from two weeks in the countryside, and since I’m easing my way back into city life and the issues surrounding Frogans technology, I’m going to ease into a pertinent frogans-related subject with a real-life example:
The city of Paris added a new wing, or wheel, to their public transportation service recently: municipal bicycles. This makes sense in a city like Paris where distances are short, destinations are plenty, and rush-hour traffic is an horreur.
The bikes are stationed at, well, at bike stations. Each bike is secured to a post by an electronically-controlled lock. It would take either a welding torch or the jaws of life to steal a bike, which would be hardly worth the bother given that each one is equipped with GPS, and that they’re far too ungainly to be considered a status symbol. Each station is equipped with a kiosk at which you make your transaction and choose a bike. Each kiosk has a display monitor and a numbered keypad, and that’s where the trouble begins.
For procuring a bike, the monitor is your user interface, and the keypad is your input device. Every option presented on the screen is accompanied by a numbered icon which bears a striking resemblance to its corresponding key on the keypad below. But instead of going to the keypad, aspiring bikers apparently prefer to touch the icon on the display. When nothing happens, many give up and take the Metro.
This almost happened to me before it dawned on me that the keypad below might have other functions than just taking my credit card’s PIN number. Getting past that I was free to struggle through an unintuitive maze of instructions that followed. This quickly attracted an audience of frustrated pedestrians, generally over 50, eager to see how I cracked the enigma. Indiana Jones and Temple of Vroom.
“Oh, you touch the keypad.” And there I go explaining in my awkward French all the little steps that only make sense to those too young to remember the rotary dial. I should have kept my mouth shut. This insane user interface is obviously a stealth public safety measure for keeping the old, and old-ish, away from these contraptions.
What’s this doing on a blog that’s supposed to be dedicated to Frogans technology? Let’s call it an example of what can unexpectedly happen (or not happen) in interactive design when working in a new medium. For every medium out there there’s a long implicit list of do’s and don’ts. When authoring a web site DO put a link to the home page on every page of the site. DON’T run an animated GIF under body text. Ignoring these things puts you at high risk of doing crummy work.
While we can expect to see a whole lot of great frogans by years end, some crummy ones are bound to crop up from time to time.
So hey kids, keep in mind that a frogans is not a website. There’s no “back” button unless you put one there. Keep your text short and concise, not like this blog, because the real estate on a frogans slide is precious. Not too many buttons, because you’ll need some no-button room for moving a frogans around on your screen. Frogans are intended to work alongside the Web, so there’s no need to go trying to replace it. And frogans are intended to be for everybody – it’s not like somebody’s going to take one and ride in front a bus.