user testing

I really wish that user testing of computer software or operating systems entirely consisted of giving normal people a short list of everyday tasks to complete, and then timing them to see just how long they took to complete them. 

Give them just what comes in the box, and then time the confused granny as she reads through the European signal compliance guide but throws out the guide to getting started, the clock ticks by as she tries to figure out whether that plastic nubbin is actually a button or not, fat fingers attempt keying in the log in details, was that just a user name, or the whole email address, is it googlemail or gmail, keying a password, repeatedly as the cursor jumps back to obliterate the user name, onward ticks the clock as wifi is negotiated, the granny loops round and round repeatedly failing to configure her email account, the test process switches over to a calendar as the granny tries and fails to update the password, she puts the mobile phone into her handbag and decides to take it back to the shop and ask one of the nice young men there how to do it….

Bento by FileMaker

I was browsing apps on the Mac AppStore and was surprised to find that the database application Bento was not there. On checking, it was withdrawn from sale in September 2013, with support only being promised until July 2014. 

For those unfamiliar with Bento, it was launched in 2008, seems like yesterday, but then I am old and dottled and pretty much everything seems like yesterday. It was presented as a database for normal people, and came out with much hurrah. Initial impressions were favourable, it hooked into your contacts etc, with ease, and was pleasant to look at. However a series of paid upgrades that seemed to offer little additional functionality, and the constraints of using a database as much of anything beyond just a computerised set of file cards, gradually wore away the initial goodwill. Its passing will be lamented by a few who have invested a lot of time and effort into their personal databases, but for most people it won’t be much missed. 

For long time Mac users there has never been a great demand for, or great number of database applications. Way back when, there was HyperCard, which was not really a database, but did stuff, then there were the works packages, AppleWorks and later ClarisWorks (for both 1984-2004) which included a database application. Oddly for modern eyes they also included a terminal programme for communicating via the new fangled inter web! With the demise of Clarisworks, and the shift to the iWorks package, there was no longer a go to database for ordinary Mac users. 

Elsewhere there is much coverage of the decline and fall of the relational database, http://www.itworld.com/storage/86308/the-decline-and-fall-relational-database

To be honest, I often find myself trying to explain to normal people what a database is. They generally look deadly bored, while I attempt to explain why Excel is actually inferior to a database for certain tasks. But for most people, they understand what Excel is, and can get it to do what they want, anything else is either a bespoke application or website and does what it does. So IMDB, the App Store, iTunes, are not a database, they are just part of the landscape. Similarly you would not expect to cobble together something like iTunes yourself, you would look for something that provided the functionality for you.

So good bye then to Bento the personal database, gone the same way as Works packages, and terminal programmes for accessing the inter web.