Matchstick Message #4: Random tones on speaker

from Tara Raffi to Student Information Requests date Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 2:12 PM subject Matchstick Message #4: Random tones on speaker

Dear RIM,

Fact #1: The BlackBerry has a speaker button. When you press it, the sound output is played louder than the default option that requires you to hold the phone to your ear.

Fact #2: Usually, when people make calls, they dial the number and hold the phone to their ear to hear the ring, and hopefully another person's voice.

Ridiculous BlackBerry Feature #294: when a call is unable to go through, the very annoying, abrasive "unable to place call tone" (do do doo!) plays on SPEAKER! Three times!

My question to RIM is WHY?! Do you play the dial rings on speaker? No. Do you play the first few seconds of a call on speaker? No. So this can't be used to alert a suddenly hard-of-hearing listener that their call cannot be placed. I admit, sometimes I'll make a call and then immediately forget, and walk holding the phone in my hand and hopefully the person will still be on the phone yelling "hello....helloo" by the time I remember... so I'm probably the only person that would ever need this feature. But even I don't want it.

In practice, you're usually in a public place when you make phone calls, maybe even a quiet public place, and you want to be able to control when and for how long your phone is on speaker. For example, if I'm in the library, and I want to check my voicemail, I can decide to make a discreet phone call. But if my service is bad? No such luck and then I become that rude person who insensitively uses their phone in the quiet room. And even if you hit End repeatedly, all three tones will play.

My message is this: RIM, please allow the person placing the call to determine the volume at which it projects its information into the surrounding environment.

Sincerely,

Tara Raffi

Discretion Enthusiast

P.S. This also applies to the speed dial tone. Similarly unnecessary.

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Matchstick Message #3: Battery too low for radio use

from	Tara Raffi
to		Student Information Requests
date		Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 6:16 PM
subject		Matchstick Message #3:

Dear RIM,

So let's say you are just sitting in your room minding your own business, and all of a sudden that cute boy from physics class that you have a crush on (he always says the answers so articulately) calls you. You listen in heart-pounding astonishment as he says, "I've wanted to tell you this for a while... but I didn't know how... but I wanted to...um uh...ok so I'm going to say it..." and all of a sudden his voice cuts out and you look to your screen to see, to your horror, "battery too low for radio use".

You think, ah! I will just plug my phone in and call him back while he's still formulating his thoughts. No such such luck, because--unlike my ancient Samsung E380 flip phone that had this capability a half decade ago--the BlackBerry cannot use electricity to enable the radio if the battery charge is below 5%. Even if you plug it in immediately, you have to wait at least three minutes to have enough battery to place a call. By that time he's convinced himself that you've rejected him by pretending to break your phone, or started solving a problem involving velocity-time graphs and forgot about you.

Since I switched to the Tour, RIM has made one step in the right direction, by not requiring you to manually turn your signal back on. That was really the worst--collapsing into sleep after a Saturday night out and waking up Sunday at 11AM to realize my signal had been off all morning and everybody went to brunch without you.

So my message is this: if a Blackberry is plugged into a charger that is plugged into a electricity socket that is working, the BlackBerry should be able to make calls. Please fix this.

Sincerely,

Tara Raffi

Electricity Enthusiast

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Matchstick Message #2: Search

from Tara Raffi to Student Information Requests date Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 11:07 AM subject Matchstick Message #2: Search

Dear RIM,

Let's talk about search. In my opinion, the quality of search is one of the most essential, and underrated, functions in technologies that handle large amounts of information. What's the first praise of Gmail I sing when setting up accounts for my friends? The archive function and the powerful search capability it enhances. With Apple, UI is an obvious benefit, but what struck me as one of the most important things to communicate to Marc Lipoff when I gave him a tutorial last week on his new Mac? Windows search functions are embarrassing compared to Mac's very fast, very accessible, and very thorough Spotlight.

BlackBerry actually does pretty well with this. The search function in Messages is pretty accessible (hit the S key), and it always brings up the results I need (unlike Windows search). I wouldn't even complain too much about superfluous options in the search screen. I guess the omission of a "more options" button could be a deliberate concession to their largest target market--I'm sure my dad would much sooner look through hundreds of emails before selecting "more options" or "advanced search".

I have two issues to discuss today, and must first discuss the less important issue in order to fully understand the more troubling one. The first problem is that its just so difficult to actually engage the "search" option, which is likely the main function of the Seach program. If you hit "enter", which seems logical, it takes you to the next line, so instead to have to press the menu or trackball, and select "search" manually. If you try to beat the system by memorizing that in just this program you must press the trackball twice, hope that you don't have anything in your clipboard because "paste" will appear as the default selection and then you'll have to do the whole thing over again. RIM, we all know that BlackBerry is in a class of its own, but please don't blatantly ignore the standard engagement function for all other major searches in the world, and just make "enter" the search key.

Ok so that is basic but the more troubling problem with BlackBerry Search is this: the Subject and Message search fields have Spell Check!!!!! I really wonder, was there any logic behind this design decision, or is there somebody at BlackBerry that is under the impression that more is always more? Because in this case, more is definitely less, especially if we actually try to consider how people use the search function.

Now, let's say Judith wants to know what room the McKinsey info session is in. And somebody just pushed the button to call Etcheverrry Hall's extremely slow elevator. There are probably a lot of words that Judith remembers from the email she read from McKinsey last week. "Come and find out more"... "discuss their experiences"..."consulting firm advising leading companies"... so which word/s will her brilliantly analytical pure-strategy-consulting-oriented powerhouse of a brain decide to search? In the heat of the moment, forgetting that RIM prides itself on holding its users to the highest standard of spelling integrity in all circumstances, she goes to the Message field, searches "McKinsey", and uses her short cut double-trackball-press trick. What room should she go to? Well, she has no idea (ah!) because all she sees is the search pane with the word "McKinney" there!!!! And the elevator arrived and all the other Haas students with their Androids run in, decidedly sure of their destination!!!

The point is simple: it makes the most sense to search for a word that is unique and differentiates the target from everything else. Most of the time, these are not dictionary words, and are often a name or something else irregularly spelt, like Sukkot, or Broomball. Even if you're doing a search with enough time to search for the search key, the fastest thing to do is enter a space after the non-word. Which is ridiculous, to be blunt.

So please, allow "enter" to engage a search, and remove the Spell Check function from all search fields.

Sincerely,

Tara Raffi

Search Enthusiast

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Matchstick Message #1: Menus

from	Tara Raffi
to		help@rim.com
date		Sat, Sep 18, 2010 at 4:52 PM
subject		Matchstick Message #1

Dear RIM,

My name is Tara. I'm a student at UC Berkeley and a devoted fan of your BlackBerry phone. I've stayed with BlackBerry across two carriers, three models, and well over a dozen different pin numbers. It is because of my love of the BlackBerry that I am writing you a Matchstick Message this week, and every week until my mission has been completed. The reason for my correspondences is that there are many things about the BlackBerry that need to change in order for it to effectively compete with its increasingly user-friendly peers. I excitedly receive the news of each BlackBerry software update and hardware release, but for the most part have been repeatedly disappointed that my list of BlackBerry Flaws, which was started in the fall of 2007, has steadily grown.

What do I want you to do with my Matchstick Messages? Read them. Like a matchstick, individual ideas are mostly insignificant on their own, but have the potential to catch fire and grow into something powerful and beautiful. Hopefully one of my Matchsticks will do that for you.

With that, let's get started!

Matchstick Message #1

For my inaugural Matchstick Message, I'd like to discuss the single most poorly designed element of the BlackBerry. Menus. How were these designed to begin with? Was there a brainstorm list of things users may need to access from a menu that a coder directly incorporated into the program from the butcher paper on the wall? Each long menu seems to have no logic, no order, and no insight into what people may be looking for when they go into menus.

For example, let's explore the menu in BlackBerry Messenger, the flagship program on the phone. Here is the menu you see when the highlight is on a row under the Chat section:

Help

Find

Collapse All

Broadcast Message...

Open Chat

End Chat

Invite To Conference

View History

Send Picture

Send Voice Note

Send File

Invite Contact

Add Category

Contact Profile

My Profile

Options

Create New Group

Scan a Group Barcode

Switch Application

Close

There are two main problems.

1. The list is too long and has superfluous items

2. It is hard to find what you need

So. The list is way too long. I have characterized superfluous items into three categories:

Basic BlackBerry functions that do not need to be included in menus except for people with extremely short term memories:

Collapse All

Open Chat

End Chat

Close

Why would anybody need these things in a menu, unless they don't know the universal sign for expand/collapse list (+/-), that enter selects a message (like in every other application on any phone), that deleting a message from a list can be accomplished using the delete key (again, like every other list of messages, ever), or that to CLOSE an program, you hit the end or back key? These are just common sense, and if you feel some people need help with this, then the information should be published in an Idiot's Guide to Using a BlackBerry, or Any Other Phone on the Planet. Or, there could even be a universal option to enable the Idiot Menu. But please, most of us really do not need an option to "Open Chat".

Items we may need, but rarely, and shouldn't be listed in every single application menu:

Help

Options

Switch Application

Like above, Help is an option that is used maybe when learning to use an application, and maybe once or twice more throughout the life of a phone. But why do I need to see it 10 times a day? I don't. I actually think it would be nice if there was a more robust Help function for people who know how to use the phone and want to know all the tricks and secrets, but this should be located at a single place on the phone, maybe as a free-standing program.

Options. For the first few months of my life with a BlackBerry, this really felt like a stab wound in the gut. WHY are there separate Options in every single application?? First of all, if I am setting up a phone, I want to go through all of my options at once, not stumble through every single program and tick-marking a hand written list to make sure my phone is fully customized. After that, yeah, sometimes you are in an application and want to adjust something. But its not that much more work to go to a universal Options pane in the actual Options program. It may even be faster than scrolling through the gargantuan menu list, and the pathway in my brain can be simply established: want to fix something => go to Options program.

Switch Application. There must be two types of people who use a BlackBerry. The simple type that just hit End and go to the next application manually (me), and the super-savvy type that hit "alt+back key". NOBODY will hit menu and scroll all the way to the bottom, then up one, when they need to switch applications. And if they do, you are doing them a favor by removing it.

Items that can be grouped together in sub-menus, like on other programs:

Send Picture

Send Voice Note

Send File

Its like this in the Camera program. Just make it uniform, and save space.

With all of the stupid things removed from the list, our revised menu looks like this:

Find

Broadcast Message...

Invite To Conference

View History

Send File...

Invite Contact

Add Category

Contact Profile

My Profile

Create New Group

Scan a Group Barcode

Now that the list is cut almost in half, let's look at the organization. What organization(!) you shout, in a voice tinged with hysteria? Exactly.

This list has no order, no logic, no beautiful serenity that you feel when using an Android or iPhone. I'm going to try to help by giving just one of many possible configurations that makes sense to me. I will be using two criteria when going through this or-gan-i-za-tion process: 1. How often does a user need this item, and 2. Which items make sense to be categorized together.

(daily use, first level. The profile options can be access in other ways, but its not blatantly obvious, which is why I kept them here)

My Profile

Contact Profile

View History

(daily use, second level--things that will be done after checking out the contact profile..etc)

Invite to Conference

Send File...

Broadcast Message

(Organizational tools. Used less often, but still cool to have and important)

Invite Contact

Add Category

Create New Group

Scan a Group Barcode

(Administrative tool-- nice to have in case you need it)

Find

The new, Organized Menu, looks like this:

My Profile

Contact Profile

View History

Invite to Conference

Send File...

Broadcast Message

Invite Contact

Add Category

Create New Group

Scan a Group Barcode

Find

Ta Da!

I only went through this process once, and not even for the most ridiculous of menus. For example, the menu that comes up when editing my BBM Profile includes Show Symbols (there's a dedicated keyboard button for that) and Switch Input Language (why here, of all places?). If I were to go through each poorly organized BlackBerry menu, I would have a product longer than Mein Kampf. Nobody wants that.

Sincerely,

Tara Raffi

Menu Enthusiast

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