How User Experience (UX) Drew Me In — A Rant About Inefficiencies
Introduction
Have you visited a landing page and felt baffled by its complicated layout? Perhaps you have opened an e-commerce application and cursed under your breath as you had no idea how to navigate the store?
Out of frustration, we would simply click away from the website, or proceed to close and delete the application. Beyond the digital realm, such inefficiencies also continue hindering the flow of our daily lives (eg. playing guessing games while figuring out whether to push or pull a Norman Door).
I am no exception. I’ve always dreamed of a utopia where such inefficiencies have been eradicated. However, I used to dismiss this far-fetched concept. It is only after I learned about UX and its rising popularity that gave me hope that this utopia can dawn upon us.
A story to be shared
Pardon me for beating about the bush, but allow me to share one of my worst experiences while working part-time back in 2016.
It was during the festive season of December. Given that we had time during the school holidays, my friends and I worked as waiters under an agency. , my friends and I had to bid for shifts at various hotels and show up. Sounds simple right? Or so we thought…
On the second day of our shift, my friends and I were on the way to work. On the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT), we were chatting, joking and simply excited since we heard that we would be serving at a wedding that night. It was a long ride from our homes but we were in high spirits so the duration didn’t seem to matter then.
Unfortunately, that was short-lived when we were greeted with ridiculous news at the entrance.
A lady clad in formal wear approached us and said, “Sorry, we have enough workers for today. Please leave.”
Those words drew my ire. How difficult was it to inform us beforehand? Was there no system in place to keep track of the number of bids and available positions? This was outrageous! To excuse them for accounting for no-shows was impossible as looking around, it was clear that we weren’t the only ones laid off. There were groups of people complaining about wasting time travelling from their homes to Sentosa. There were even other people bickering with the staff, demanding them for compensation. (Sadly, we were not compensated).
That was the first of many tragedies to befall us while working under the agency. Eventually, we stopped working under them altogether.
Solving the problem
Before this article turns into a pity party, notice how none of these would have happened if there was a system that tracked the number of bids and the job openings available. Many booking applications have similar functions, so why didn’t the agency implement it? The answer is simple — negligence towards the workers’ working experience. It is hence no surprise that the agency was given such a mediocre rating on job search sites like glassdoor.sg.
Some of you may be thinking that I am dwelling too much on a trivial matter. It certainly is far from the worst thing I have ever experienced. The point is, with so many job agencies in the hospitality and tourism sector, how might one agency distinguish themselves from another? How can this company bump up its ratings? One of the answers lies in UX.
If the company had weaved in a system to document (or display) the number of biddings and job vacancies, the chances of turning “extra” workers away would decrease drastically. This can be displayed on their website and even their mobile application. Then comes the question of “How might we make it easy to navigate around the medium to access this information?”
Many more questions of “How might we…” will follow suit and it is a never-ending process. However, so long as each action taken improves the workers’ experience, there is progress.
Final Words
By merging logical and creative thinking to resolve problems around the world, UX is a unique discipline by itself. It allows us to uncover the root of various complicated problems and solve them from a humanistic approach.
To sum it up, UX is the advocate of human need.
