Unintuitive

Many years ago, when working at the then commercial arm of the BBC, I came across an interesting issue of how intuitive systems aren't necessarily what they might seem.

The TV programme sales part of the organisation, which sold TV programmes to other broadcasters worldwide, had a sales processing system (SPS) built in an archaic programming language called PROVI. It was old-school, run in a terminal window, and had a complex user interface that involved combinations of key presses to navigate and transact.

It was the very antithesis of an intuitive, modern Windows-based user interface. A new user took many, many hours to get up to speed. The system was a black box to the management, most of whom couldn't use it at all. "We need a new sales processing system" was the senior management view.

However, on investigation, we found that users of the system, once they had invested in learning it, were very dextrous in its use. They knew the key presses and the F-keys needed to use it, and they could use them at speed. They also knew many of the complex business rules that were necessary to understand to, for example, sell a copy of Eastenders to a Polish cable TV channel.

I've been reminded of SPS recently as I've been exploring some products from the Swedish music device manufacturer teenage engineering . They are fascinating because they fly in the face of modern user interface design principles in that, at first use, they are anything but intuitive.

Take the sampler EP133 KOII, pictured above. Turn it on and, to be honest, you are none the wiser. It's more likely to be able to calculate your general ledger than make music. The learning curve, in comparison to many modern devices, is pretty steep.

But after a few hours, you realise that a lot of thought has gone into making a device with a complex workflow that, whilst not immediately intuitive, is really good (and fun) to use.

Not only that but those pesky Swedes have hooked into something known as the Ikea Effect. Because I've had to put effort into learning the product, I'm more emotionally committed to the product.

I've learned a few things from this. First, what seems intuitive at first might not be optimal in the medium term. Second, a product that provides some challenge to the user rather than being as frictionless as possible enables the user to feel a sense of achievement that a super-easy UI might not provide.

That might not be a great strategy for, say, an online supermarket. But for some sorts of products, building friction into the first experience might make for a better user experience in the long term.