Even with the recent rise in focus on user experience (UX) testing, I think the practice in general is frightfully under invested in. I don’t have unreasonably high expectations of products, but sometimes the UX is so bad that it makes me literally shout out loud in anger at the company who made it. Such was the case from my experience with the new Audible app this morning. I have listened to hundreds of books with Audible over the past several years. I’ve recommended Audible along with the practice of using your commute to learn to anyone who’ll listen. Lately I’ve been listening mostly to podcasts, so I didn’t notice the recent changes to the Audible app until this morning.
They’ve replaced “Bookmarks” with “Clips”. Sounds harmless. In fact, the clip feature can be useful, if say I’m listening to a book while lying back on a beach chair by the ocean where I can casually take the time to mark the beginning and end point of my clip and edit it to make sure I remove any unintended words. But like most people, I listen to audio books mainly in my car, and you can’t use this feature while driving without seriously risking your life. I can’t bother with marking the beginning and end of my clip you *$$@#!#@$# $#!@%, I’m driving! I tried to use a clip like a bookmark but it resulted in making a large clip from the beginning of the book to the point where I wanted to bookmark.
It’s labeled in the app “Clips and Bookmarks”, seemingly implying think the plain old bookmark functionality is still there somewhere if I can just find it (it’s not). It was dangerous enough using bookmarks while driving, but clipping is completely out of the question. It’s a shame because I really value my bookmarks. But this feature is just too dangerous to use while driving. I guess I will have to make sure the important points sink in the first time. I just expect more from large companies like Audible (Amazon), in part because I know it’s likely that there’s a team of people who work there whose focus is UX.
I know, I’m not supposed to be using my phone while driving in the first place. But I’m not sure how realistic that is as a hard rule. This isn’t exactly texting. I think certain apps like music, audio books, and GPS navigation, are meant to be used in a car and it’s unrealistic to expect zero user interaction while driving. If these apps are made with the expectation of light use while driving, they should be no more difficult to use than operating the built in car radio or air conditioning.
Doug Kerwin 