A UX story of Good Intentions, Google Maps and Cat Poop 🐈💩

When working with a design, I often find myself asking: “What does the person visiting or using my design want out of it? What it their goal?” If I can figure out what people want from the product, I can guide them there faster and easier; resulting in a, hopefully, better experience. We’re all driven by goals throughout the day, especially when interacting with a software or service, whether it be booking a hotel or ordering a new pair of yogapants.

Being a woman of the modern age, I often have my own goal of finding some new clothes in the hopes they’ll make me a more successful, confident person 💅 Like so many other people, I shop using Zalando’s app. And due to its ability to offer me similar clothing to what I’m currently viewing, within mere minutes I’m already well on the way to financial ruin.

Zalando has really nailed the “personal shopping” app concept all the way through Image sources

Sadly for Zalando, I always end up realising: it’s not your clothes. It’s how you wear them. That and the fact I rarely have the money for shopping to begin with. But the best thing about the app is; nothing is getting in my way or trying to make me do something other, than what I want to do.

But let’s rewind to what got me thinking about this in the first place, because it wasn’t Zalando.

It was my cat 🐈

Hooman gaming time is kitty sleepy time!

See, goals are not limited to people alone. Or at least so I realised one evening when my cat had a goal, for which he needed my help.

And that goal was to poop.

Because when he’s not busy sleeping, eating or drinking water from the tap, my cat poops. He poops a lot. For this, he has his very own Poop Castle:

Image source

One evening, he was wailing his heart out, and I realised this was of course the Poop Sound. The Poop Sound is the sound he makes when he really needs to poop, but his human needs to clean the Poop Castle first. So I got up from the couch to empty the box for dirty sand and add new, fresh sand to it.

The cat sand I recently bought comes in a box which is very neatly designed. It has a hole you can press open and a tiny “finger hole” for flipping the flip up when you’re pouring, and back down again when you’re finished pouring. The hole itself isn’t extremely large, but big enough to provide a satisfying stream of fresh Poop Sand. Thus providing me with a good User Experience.

Until this specific evening, that is.

I was pouring sand into the Poop Castle until suddenly, to my surprise, the stream of Poop Sand stopped. Mystified, I tried to shake the box, its weight told me there was at least half a Poop Castle of sand left in it. The motion also revealed a thump, which baffled me even more. I shook again and the sound appeared again, confirming that there was indeed some sort of object inside. I turned the box to look at the print on the side of it, and to my surprise discovered the manufacturer had put a free pack of soft cat food inside it.

Normally, I like free things. But this pack of cat food was blocking the hole in the box, cruelly denying me the rest of the precious poop sand.

What was most likely thought as a nice gesture went to shit, quite literally, two minutes later when my cat came in and shat in his Poop Castle. But this of course got me thinking about the bad user experience I’d just had with this product.

It also got me thinking of another other similar experience I’ve had very recently.

One time, I was driving somewhere new. When driving unknown routes, due to my complete lack of directional sense, I use Google Maps for navigating to my destination.

Now when I’m driving unknown routes, I’m more alert than when driving the same route back and forth to work. And I’m doubly alert if there’s visible snow on the road, heavy traffic or both at the same time. Some routes can make me very frustrated if I’m uncertain where to turn or which lane to take.

One thing is for certain when I’m in this “don’t fuck with me right now I’m concentrating on driving”-state. My cool goes completely out the window as I‘m suddenly prompted with this:

Image source

This “Faster Route Available-view” actually replaces the entire, original route which is super frustrating for numerous reasons:

1. I’m being distracted from driving. Please don’t do that.
2. I also have to process this new information in my brain while driving the car, which is using plenty of brain power already ⚡️
3. I don’t care about faster routes. I’ve already picked my fucking route.
4. I have to reach out and dismiss it in order to see where I need to go next. Or wait until it dismisses itself, though waiting is not really an option when you’re in a moving car.

Now, I definitely see the good intentions behind it, in both of these recent experiences I’ve had. But the issue is, in both cases they’ve blocked me from completing my goal. So despite those good intentions, this certainly won’t earn any extra credit in my book. Quite the opposite, in fact.

So how do we solve these issues?

Anyone can complain about something, but as UX Designers our job is to actually fix these problems once we’re aware of them.

How does the poop sand provider solve their pouring problem while still offering their free gift?

To avoid this issue to begin with, all it would take was putting it to the test. By inviting people over to pour poop sand, we could have discovered the issue, to which there are a few solutions:

1. Choosing a free gift in a small enough size so it can exit the hole easily. This way, the gift would go plop! into the cat litter box, creating that fun surprise and positive experience intended. Yay, poop food! Thank you, random poop sand provider! Instead of an entire box of cat food, it could be one or two of those cat sticks snacks. Also, I totally just realised the poop metaphor in “exit the hole.”
2. Make the cashier offer the free gift on purchase. I’ve actually experienced this before in my local pet shop, when buying a specific brand sometimes you get a discount ticket or just an extra, free item on checkout.

How does Google Maps offer its Faster Route Available feature while still ensuring people can drive safely?

It’s pretty safe to assume Google knows my exact location, it’s how it makes the blue arrow move along as I move. Which is kind of creepy when you think about it. But that arrow means it’s also pretty safe to assume Google knows how fast I’m going. It also knows whether I’m walking, driving, biking or taking public transportation for my route:

In all honestly, I personally think the feature should be completely turned off when driving the car. It’s really dangerous to distract people when they’re driving, whether it be in a car or on a bike. But let’s imagine the feature of offering an alternate route was limited by:

1. Type of navigation (driving or walking)
2. How fast we’re going (fast or slow)

If I’m caught in a traffic jam and my speed is really low, or even better yet, if I’m holding completely still, this could be the time to offer me an alternate route, still with the countdown. But the message should go away as soon as I started accelerating my speed again.

This is assuming the message has to fill the entire screen to show the entire new route, which on one hand, makes sense. But on the other hand, if I’m waiting in a really long line, I might not be so hooked up on my original route. The message could just appear in a snip of the screen where it’s not blocking the navigation with a big fat “change route” button so it’s easy to tap.

Conclusions

Good intentions don’t always have a positive outcome if a goal is being obstructed, especially not if it happens at a critical moment. Whether it be while you’re out in the middle of traffic, or while your cat is crying beside you to pour that poop sand faster, hooman! 😾

Sometimes the good User Experience is simply not bugging people too much.

Thanks for reading! ✨

If you have any other examples of good intentions blocking a goal, please let me know in the comments! Or maybe you have a better idea how these two cases could be solved?