73
votes
Why is being "on hold" on the telephone not made less annoying?
It's just a matter of costs and resources.
In germany for example it's really common these days to get:
approximate waiting time in minutes
news regarding other products to keep you "busy" and maybe ...
- 10.8k
36
votes
Accepted
How do you convey that the minimum size of an input is X characters?
The best approach is to inform the user about these rules in plain language next to respective input fields.
I would suggest enforcing a minimum and maximum character limit to handle edge cases and ...
- 3,599
30
votes
Why is being "on hold" on the telephone not made less annoying?
Very practical reasons:
It is worth more investing money in actually fixing the wait times (i.e. hiring more personnel), than investing in infrastructure that needs to be maintained/connected to ...
- 1,987
24
votes
Why is being "on hold" on the telephone not made less annoying?
Some queue systems already do tell you where you are in the queue - I have encountered this calling my local doctor.
However, with some places you call, the queue system is complex - a friend of mine ...
- 340
24
votes
Should disabled buttons give feedback when clicked?
In the end, both ways lead to the same result. Whether it's an inline error or maybe a bubble with feedback, the user gets to know why he can't proceed (which adheres to visibility of system status).
...
- 6,816
13
votes
Why is being "on hold" on the telephone not made less annoying?
Your suggestions are all great, and it turns out that it is already being implemented. For example, here in India, some of the companies that put me "on hold" give me the following:
Annoying ...
- 231
12
votes
Accepted
When evaluating prototypes, how can I ensure the user evaluates specific aspects instead of the product/design as a whole?
User performance not user opinions
The solution is to do a proper usability test. Don’t show users a prototype and ask them what they think of it. That’s asking them to imagine what it would be like ...
- 37.7k
11
votes
Should disabled buttons give feedback when clicked?
If this weren't mobile, I'd say it would be better to have a message shown next to the disabled button saying
Please fill in the remaining required fields (marked with *)
or some such (...
- 211
10
votes
Accepted
Should visited and unvisited links be of different color?
I do like the way you bring this topic on the table :D
This is a question from 3 years ago.
First thing I need to mention, because you mentioned it yourself: companies like Google, Reddit, Craiglist, ...
- 546
7
votes
When conducting user research/customer surveys, how do financial incentives affect quality and quantity of feedback?
General Summary
It's safe to generalize and suggest that both the positive and negative effects of incentive use on survey response rate and data quality can be described as mild to none.
Notes on ...
- 11.6k
7
votes
Should disabled buttons give feedback when clicked?
This is how the Google sign-up process does it. It should be very similar to your process. Note that the primary button is always enabled, it only changes its function!
You are presented with a ...
- 2,078
6
votes
Pushing back on attitudinal feedback?
There's an old saying, "Treat kind people kindly. Treat unkind people even more kindly." With the user interface, I think an analogy applies: "Take good advice seriously. Take bad advice even more ...
- 256
6
votes
Does the user want a notification when an action is performed successfully?
It is best to give some sort of feedback. The Netflix DVD Queue doesn't pop anything up, but it gives clear visual feedback that something has happened and that you can undo it.
Gmail provides an ...
- 9,034
6
votes
What is the true benefit of likes and dislikes count?
I disagree. The Like Button is a de facto feature to further exploit or empower the the role of the user for internet content. Its a democratic effect in reality.
And it serves several different ...
- 1,576
6
votes
Best order for smiley rating scale
My initial instinct is to go from sad to happy.
The only real argument I can provide is that it reflects a type of number line, with the neutral face being 0, positive numbers being smiley faces, and ...
- 1,564
6
votes
Why is being "on hold" on the telephone not made less annoying?
Most telephone services give an estimated or minimum waiting time. But I agree more feedback should be given. Something equivalent to a progress bar. Two possible options are :
The music can become ...
- 7,781
5
votes
Accepted
How to get feedback from user for a very small change
I think a change like that is too small to use analytics tools on it.
Maybe inviting 5-10 or so people to your office and make a little test in within-subject design would be a good alternative to get ...
- 6,816
5
votes
Accepted
To success or not to success?
Do you need to put success message? Yes. You need to put success message.
When we use web; we actually have conversation with the applications we use. So when I have performed some action, the ...
- 16.2k
5
votes
Why is being "on hold" on the telephone not made less annoying?
I've certainly rung call centres where they do exactly this. A fair number of systems will interrupt the hold music every 30s or so to say where you are in the queue, as well as the obligatory "your ...
- 261
5
votes
Why is being "on hold" on the telephone not made less annoying?
I question the premise of the question. I find that it is being made less annoying in some cases. Most of the suggestions in the question are already commonplace (there are N people ahead of you in ...
- 2,536
5
votes
How to deny the usage of my product to a user?
We aim for delightful and pleasant experiences. Unfortunately, there are times where you have to deliver bad news to a user. There are a few things you can do to ease the sense of frustration and ...
- 9,851
5
votes
Should we explicitly alert the user that an operation they performed was successful/unsuccessful, even though it's implicitly obvious?
– We have a few buttons on our website that when clicked do somethings that are obvious... –
I understand and share what you say, but in accessibility the obvious has no place. What is obvious for one ...
- 18.3k
4
votes
Accepted
Aural Feedback, what is it?
I don't know the context, but generally speaking, in visual interfaces with aural enhancements, you have 2 parts: one is the Aural Aid, which is the set of instructions provided to the user in an ...
- 37.3k
4
votes
Should I hide action buttons or let the user press them and then show a message
Considering usability, it is better practice to have all controls in your page always visible. Otherwise controls look missing or confuse the user looking for follow-up actions which are not in ...
- 111
4
votes
Accepted
Why is being "on hold" on the telephone not made less annoying?
A few things that haven't really been covered in the other questions, but which I have personally had to work around in my career...
Technical Limitations
Simple MOH queuing is very easy to ...
- 156
4
votes
Accepted
Best practices for diplaying the Password Requirements
Option 1 is a much cleaner solution that what is displayed in the graphic above. And option 1 is a good space saver.
I would recommend changing the white circles next to each line of requirement to ...
- 81
4
votes
Should disabled buttons give feedback when clicked?
Going by the concept of 'informed decisions', it is always better to provide users with enough directions so that they do not make any mistakes instead of letting them find out that what they did was ...
- 3,196
4
votes
Why does front page of Google.com give no feedback when trying to search when nothing's entered?
Just a hunch on my part - I have no involvement in Google: It's to emphasize the simplicity of the interface.
Google's homepage was designed to be super simple. At the time that was a bold move ...
- 499
4
votes
How to show correct and incorrect answers to multiple answer test?
Shortly after asking, I found this treatise on multiple answer feedback by Yulin Liu. Not everything is directly transferrable, but I've pulled in two key ideas:
Don't use checkmarks (ie the standard ...
- 231
3
votes
Accepted
Feedback for invalid selection of the text
Train your users
Start by letting your users know how to use the system, and define some common notices. For example:
Explain the process
Now, you can tell them that if they do something unexpected, ...
- 37.3k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible