[Sigia-l] is bad design a choice?

[Skot Nelson]

On Oct-18-2005, at 5:28 AM, Todd Warfel wrote:

> I actually did that. The online banking interface was so poor that  
> I had to
> switch to the bank I'm with now - couldn't be bothered with the  
> other one.
> It was simply dreadful.

I used to see this happen a lot, in both directions. Banking is an  
extremely complex activity, and the features that are important to  
one person may not be irrelevant to the next. It's  field where  
usability can have a tremendous impact on customer satisfaction.

This is increasingly true, as banking is increasingly about  
interacting with technology, not people. The only time many customers  
interact with an actual human being in their banking lives now is  
when they have a complaint.

Keep in mind things that make banking different, and mean that  
interaction design matters even more than with many other applications:
- extremely complex
- most transactions/interactions are purely digital with no physical  
product at all (William Gibson was once asked "What is cyberspace?"  
His answer: "I don't know but I know it's where the bank keeps my  
money". Physical money is a pretty abstract concept at this point for  
many people.)
- very repetitive

Banking's quite unique in many ways really. It certainly isn't eBay  
or Amazon.com.
--
Scott Nelson
skot at penguinstorm.com
http://www.penguinstorm.com/