RSA Day on Interfaces raises More Questions than Answers

The Royal Society for the encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce is an old and illustrious institution, credited with leading the Industrial Revolution. Its president is HRH Prince Philip, and the one-day conference on "Interface: User and Machine" held in its vaults last week was instigated by the Prince, clearly as part of a personal crusade.

The Prince opened the conference with a witty and poignant address about his problems with gadgets as a user. The Duke of Edinburgh is a keen promoter of British science and technology. But in attempting to use the interfaces to some of these new technologies, he discovered that he was one of the 'control-challenged': 'I thought I was alone in finding them difficult and kept my problems to myself,' he said. But, he concluded, manufacturers must 'get a kick out of hiding the on-off switch'. He complained of control panels that resemble the Rosetta Stone and video recorders that can only be set by 'lying flat on the floor with a torch in your teeth and a user manual'. Having listed some of the greatest known arguments for usability work, he summed up by saying that finding out others had similar problems led him to suggest the conference.

The RSA assembled an impressive line-up of speakers to support the endeavour. Roger Coleman, director of the Helen Hamlyn Research Centre at the Royal College of Art, talked of the impact of a falling birthrate worldwide, an ageing population and the move towards social inclusion as a philosophy. He traced progress from a medical model of design support that stresses people's deficits and offers aids and adaptations, to a social model that stresses individuals' lifestyles and aspirations. Universal design meant getting it right for everybody, he said. He had just come from a meeting with the British Standards Institute on a standard for Inclusive Design Management (due 2005), he cited an RCA project with retailer B&Q to build age- and ability- friendly tools (the first are in the shops this Christmas), he mentioned the impressive entries to the third 'Innovation through Inclusive Design' Challenge (to be discussed on 10 December). The scene was set in a dynamic way.

Next Maura Shea of IDEO ran through a number of methods for working with users to ensure better product design; she exhorted the audience to 'fail early (and often) in order to succeed sooner' as a prototyping strategy.

Sir Christopher Frayling, chairman of the Design Council and rector of the Royal College of Art, another witty speaker, succinctly summarised the issues affecting the success or failure of user-centred design. Introducing the idea of UFOs – unwanted feature options – he concluded that sub-groups of the population may enjoy 'peeling the technological onion' but that many features are there not because they are needed or useful but because the product is under-designed and over-technologised. 'Not over-designed!' he stressed. He also pointed out that the journey from designer to board executive and back often eliminated any sensitivity to final use. Someone from the audience chipped in by saying that the features are there to sell the product, not to be used. When their company had eliminated the many rarely used features to make a simpler interface, their product had become less competitive in the marketplace. The audience gave a collective sigh.

Dave Roberts of IBM's Ease of Use team then gave an industrial perspective. He said that of 25000 staff in IBM, 500 were employed in Ease of Use, working to improve the total user experience. Introducing "User Engineering", he showed how this latest IBM concept was a step on from merely implementing user-centred design in that it has executive involvement, integrated methods and uses business goals to drive the process.

David Yelding of RICAbility, commented on the energy of the designers who had spoken before him, saying that his view was much more depressing as he surveyed the products in the marketplace. The concept of inclusive design did not seem to feature on undergraduate design courses: 'it's not sexy?' he asked. He offered the opportunity for manufacturers and educational institutions to work with his outfit to learn more about how to design for all.

John Clarkson of the Engineering Design Department, University of Cambridge suggested that 'a good inclusive design is one which only excludes the people that the designer intends to exclude'. (His strategy for identifying the scope of inclusion for a particular design will feature on UN soon.) His thoughts were followed up by Robin Hutchison, head of communications and central fundraising for the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association. Designers do not sit down and ask how they can alienate a particular group, he said. 'We must avoid accidental exclusion. Let us become the persuaders... we must ask what can I do to make sure that I don't accidentally exclude anyone?'

And this ended the morning. Questions and comments from the audience (of about 180 - including many from organisations involved directly in the conference) revealed that most attendees were there because of their interest in and knowledge about usability, accessibility and inclusive design. As one delegate put it: 'There's a bit of preaching to the converted going on'. As the Prince put it, he hadn't realised the amount of effort that was going into tackling these issues, that very many people were trying to put the problems right. Others felt that the RSA had made a good start, but needed to catch up quickly with what had happened elsewhere and move the discussion on.

Usability, in particular, seemed to be a blind spot during the day, despite its obvious relevance. The advance information on the afternoon sessions contained the first formal mention of usability. Unfortunately, the slot given to Catriona Land, European director for own brand at ASDA, to 'speak about usability in relation to shopping, food labelling etc' turned out to be an intriguing look at how packaging and atmosphere can increase sales of products by playing to consumers' preoccupation with 'functionality, ingrained emotional beliefs, freshness and ideas'. Then Jeff Patmore, head of internet and multimedia design and solutions at BTExact, talked about how he had discovered the benefits of multi-disciplinary teams linking marketing, sales and engineering for product development, but again rather neglected his 'usability' brief. Thank goodness then for the contribution from Anne Anderson, director of the PACCIT (People at the Centre of Communication and Information Technologies) programme, a collaboration between academia and industry funded by the DTI. She described some good HCI work taking place at the moment to improve iTV interfaces and to make shopping for a holiday more effective.

The day ended with a panel. After a question and answer session, panellists and audience were charged to come up with ways that the RSA could progress from here in promoting better interface design. The many suggestions included:
* facilitating more feedback from consumer groups about general products in the marketplace,
* bringing people together to share knowledge,
* introducing an award for user effectiveness,
* using its influence to promote national standards,
* researching just why there is a communication problem between British industry and the usability/inclusive design lobby, and
* getting more savvy about branding and usability and taking this to the brand managers.

As panellist Alan Newell of the University of Dundee pointed out, we owe it to British industry to make clear to the captains of it what value inclusive and effective design has to business. Maybe the RSA, with extensive and historic connections in the business world, can open new doors.

Meanwhile, it was satisfying to hear a disgruntled user with enough influence to call a conference because the technology doesn't work like it should. The RSA may not be leading this revolution, but it can only be a powerful ally.

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