Yes, Usability includes being able to use it.
By WillYum. Friday, 4. September 2009, 20:02:05
I just read Network Woes? Hate the iPhone, Not AT&T by Mr. Newman. The basic premise: Don't hate AT&T because they're network can't handle iPhone data traffic. He points out that iPhone users use more and other networks don't have the problems because they don't have the iPhones.
Nevertheless, I contend it is still AT&T's fault.
Put on your time travel hats and let's head back to December 1996. America Online (AOL) is the leader of the online world by virtue of being the largest ISP. They've operated on a "hourly billing" system (yes, you used to have to pay-per-hour for Internet Access) and then they offered a new "unlimited hours" billing plan. WHAM! For months accessing AOL was like trying to reach the really popular girl in High School after her latest date. You begin to sing harmonies with the busy signal.
It was a classic case of a failure to appreciate the market and then worse, failing to communicate a failure. They removed the "scarcity" created by keeping the hourly timer. AOL avoided acknowledging the problem for a while and then avoided answering direct questions about how and when they were going to fix it.
They also reaped the rewards, membership and subscriptions skyrocketed... millions of people signed up and wanted to get online. Only to find it was America OnBusySignal. The decision was clearly "profit-oriented" and then the failure to take effective corrective action after they realized they were overloading the system. Yes, eventually they caught up with the demand but not after millions of people felt betrayed by the ISP. AOL could have avoided some of the upset by stating up front, "Due to overwhelming demand access to our systems may be limited until we are able to meet demand." -- yes, before someone signed the contract. Or... even, limit the subscriptions you accept to account for what you can actually provide.
Put another way, AOL oversold the movie theater, by a lot. They knew they didn't have enough seats but all they saw was dollar signs, so they sold tickets to everyone who walked up, knowing that they couldn't possibly get them all into the movie theater.
It should be considered a fundamental tenant of usability: You must be able to use it (in this case sign on).
Perhaps this is a flaw in capitalism. It's far better to take that risk, over-promise and not deliver then to be more conservative and lose customers (aka "leave money on the table").
When you walk up to a movie theater and you buy a ticket, you expect to see that movie. When you buy a plane ticket, you expect to have a seat on that plane*. When you signed up for AOL, you expect to actually be able to use AOL. And finally, when you sign up for an iPhone and two-year contract you expect to be able to use it.
It's AT&T's responsibility to provide service capacity or warn customers prior to signing the contract what the service REALLY will be.
Again, it's important that usability includes being able to use it. This means capacity issues must be taken into account when designing systems. This means monitoring your capability to provide consistent, reliable access to your customers.
However, history seems to dictate we'll continue to have this situation where developers fail to take into account "the big picture". It's a complicated issue, including system redundancy and sophisticated network management.
Similar examples. Gmail's recent Email Outage was exactly the same type of failure event as the Northeast Power Outage of 2003. The redundancy system worked correctly but designers had failed to properly take into account the failure of multiple nodes across the system that automatically redirected demand to others, causing them to fail in turn. (If anyone out there has a technical name for this problem, I'd be curious to learn about it. It seems like the combination of a Feedback Loop and Domino Effect. Domino Feedback Loop.
)
In short, the capacity problem that AT&T is facing is not unheard of and could have been predicted (or at least dealt with differently now). So, who's fault is it? That'd be AT&T. The blame is where it belongs.
Yum
* Yes, I am aware airlines oversell their seats, I used this example specifically because it establishes a system for dealing with their oversell. You are financially compensated if you can't take that flight.
** I don't have an iPhone, I have a Gphone. -- T-mobile has it's own issues.
Nevertheless, I contend it is still AT&T's fault.
Put on your time travel hats and let's head back to December 1996. America Online (AOL) is the leader of the online world by virtue of being the largest ISP. They've operated on a "hourly billing" system (yes, you used to have to pay-per-hour for Internet Access) and then they offered a new "unlimited hours" billing plan. WHAM! For months accessing AOL was like trying to reach the really popular girl in High School after her latest date. You begin to sing harmonies with the busy signal.
It was a classic case of a failure to appreciate the market and then worse, failing to communicate a failure. They removed the "scarcity" created by keeping the hourly timer. AOL avoided acknowledging the problem for a while and then avoided answering direct questions about how and when they were going to fix it.
They also reaped the rewards, membership and subscriptions skyrocketed... millions of people signed up and wanted to get online. Only to find it was America OnBusySignal. The decision was clearly "profit-oriented" and then the failure to take effective corrective action after they realized they were overloading the system. Yes, eventually they caught up with the demand but not after millions of people felt betrayed by the ISP. AOL could have avoided some of the upset by stating up front, "Due to overwhelming demand access to our systems may be limited until we are able to meet demand." -- yes, before someone signed the contract. Or... even, limit the subscriptions you accept to account for what you can actually provide.
Put another way, AOL oversold the movie theater, by a lot. They knew they didn't have enough seats but all they saw was dollar signs, so they sold tickets to everyone who walked up, knowing that they couldn't possibly get them all into the movie theater.
It should be considered a fundamental tenant of usability: You must be able to use it (in this case sign on).
Perhaps this is a flaw in capitalism. It's far better to take that risk, over-promise and not deliver then to be more conservative and lose customers (aka "leave money on the table").
When you walk up to a movie theater and you buy a ticket, you expect to see that movie. When you buy a plane ticket, you expect to have a seat on that plane*. When you signed up for AOL, you expect to actually be able to use AOL. And finally, when you sign up for an iPhone and two-year contract you expect to be able to use it.
It's AT&T's responsibility to provide service capacity or warn customers prior to signing the contract what the service REALLY will be.
Again, it's important that usability includes being able to use it. This means capacity issues must be taken into account when designing systems. This means monitoring your capability to provide consistent, reliable access to your customers.
However, history seems to dictate we'll continue to have this situation where developers fail to take into account "the big picture". It's a complicated issue, including system redundancy and sophisticated network management.
Similar examples. Gmail's recent Email Outage was exactly the same type of failure event as the Northeast Power Outage of 2003. The redundancy system worked correctly but designers had failed to properly take into account the failure of multiple nodes across the system that automatically redirected demand to others, causing them to fail in turn. (If anyone out there has a technical name for this problem, I'd be curious to learn about it. It seems like the combination of a Feedback Loop and Domino Effect. Domino Feedback Loop.
)In short, the capacity problem that AT&T is facing is not unheard of and could have been predicted (or at least dealt with differently now). So, who's fault is it? That'd be AT&T. The blame is where it belongs.
Yum
* Yes, I am aware airlines oversell their seats, I used this example specifically because it establishes a system for dealing with their oversell. You are financially compensated if you can't take that flight.
** I don't have an iPhone, I have a Gphone. -- T-mobile has it's own issues.
WIDGETIZE
bugscout # 7. September 2009, 09:29
Eddie_Lopez # 8. September 2009, 16:54
Plus- they changed the pricing model with the iphone to support/require the data plan- hello!?!?!?! how about some infrastructure to support that?
AT&T- If you don't wanna tie shoes for a living, you shouldn't be a shoe salesmen.
Anonymous # 8. September 2009, 17:10
it is only going to get worse with all the SmartBooks and netbooks that they are going to subsidize with a 2 year 3G dataplan. The network is going to get really slow next year.
WillYum # 8. September 2009, 18:29