For a Better User Experience, Press 1 Now!

[ktyacke]

Alternate Title (more catchy, less PC): Why Your Customers Hate Your Face!

How many times have you run into a problem, let’s say with one of your mobile devices. You go to the manufacturer’s website to find the contact information for their support team. After a bit of digging, and most likely about a half dozen form entries, you finally get the number. You then leave the browser, dial the number into your phone (if it’s working), and proceed to sit through a long, annoying greeting message, followed by a bunch of options you don’t care about, and after finally finding the option you want you are placed on hold, at which point you are just as likely to get disconnected as you are to speak with an actual human being that can help you with your problem.

Now let’s look at the flip-side of this same situation! Imagine you went to the manufacturers site, signed into your account, and were immediately presented with information about your device and an option to call the support line directly from your browser. You click the button and are greeted by a real-time call with an actual person who has your account information, knows what kind of device you have, and is ready to help! A much better experience right?

We have the technology to improve the way people interact with products, services, and most importantly each other, yet so many of us continue to develop applications and services that adhere to outdated and painful ways of interacting. I’d like to propose an exploration of the many broken, and frustrating workflows that we all interact with (and possibly create) on a daily basis, and contrast that with the ways that developers are using technology to re-think these ideas and provide an improved experience.

The end result of this talk will be a throwing down of the gauntlet, a call to arms, a challenge: to all developers to think outside the box, challenge norms, and start creating better experiences today so that we can all lead a happier tomorrow! (queue rainbows, kittens, and fluffy, happy music here haha)

Pitch aside, most of the examples will likely revolve around the use of live audio / video / messaging / and data via webRTC and will include some down-right cool/inspirational projects that are being built in the dev community today (think webRTC bit-torrent client or creating your own telecomm using Javascript) with the goal of both challenging and inspiring the audience to start thinking of new and creative ways in which this and other technology can be used to come up with new solutions to everyday problems...

[feross]

Nice, this sounds awesome!!
On Wed, Oct 29, 2014 at 5:33 PM ktyacke [email protected] wrote:

Alternate Title (more catchy, less PC): Why Your Customers Hate Your Face!

How many times have you run into a problem, let’s say with one of your
mobile devices. You go to the manufacturer’s website to find the contact
information for their support team. After a bit of digging, and most likely
about a half dozen form entries, you finally get the number. You then leave
the browser, dial the number into your phone (if it’s working), and proceed
to sit through a long, annoying greeting message, followed by a bunch of
options you don’t care about, and after finally finding the option you want
you are placed on hold, at which point you are just as likely to get
disconnected as you are to speak with an actual human being that can help
you with your problem.

Now let’s look at the flip-side of this same situation! Imagine you went
to the manufacturers site, signed into your account, and were immediately
presented with information about your device and an option to call the
support line directly from your browser. You click the button and are
greeted by a real-time call with an actual person who has your account
information and is ready to help! A much better experience right?

We have the technology to improve the way people interact with products,
services, and most importantly each other, yet so many of us continue to
develop applications and services that adhere to outdated and painful ways
of interacting. I’d like to propose an exploration into the many broken,
and frustrating workflows that we all interact with (and possibly create)
on a daily basis, and contrast that with the ways that developers are using
technology to re-think these ideas and provide an improved experience.

The end result of this talk will be a throwing down of the gauntlet, a
call to arms, a challenge: to all developers to think outside the box,
challenge norms, and start creating better experiences today so that we can
all lead a happier tomorrow! (queue rainbows, kittens, and fluffy, happy
music here haha)

Pitch aside, most of the examples will likely revolve around the use of
audio/video/messaging/and data via webRTC and will include some down-right
cool/inspirational projects that are being built in the dev community today
(think webRTC bit-torrent client or creating your own telecomm using
Javascript) with the goal of both challenging and inspiring the audience to
start thinking of new and creative ways in which this and other technology
can be used to come up with new solutions to everyday problems...

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