Usability applies to many different products, services, interactions and environments. You can just as easily talk about the usability of a bank deposit form as the usability of a website or software application. Or the usability of automated phone systems.

Ensuring that a phone system is usable has its challenges. I should know, when I worked as a software engineer I used to program them. Phone rage is a real problem – nine of our 10 people’s experiences at call centres leave them frustrated and angry.

Recently I shifted houses, and needed my telephone reconnected. This was my experience:

Call 1, 5 mins: Got cut off.

Call 2, 10 mins: Operator told me I called the wrong number, and should call back. Can’t you just transfer me?

Call 3, 10 mins: Rang the “right” number, but kept getting a ring tone instead of cheesy hold music. Wasn’t sure that I was getting anywhere, so hung up.

Call 4, 53 mins: This time I stayed on the line a lot longer, but eventually figured “this can’t be right” and I hung up.

Call 5, 15 mins: Decided to press 0 to talk to the operator. After 10 minutes on hold the operator told me she had to transfer me to the New Connections Department. I got through to an automated message telling me that the office was shut because its opening hours were from 7am – 9pm. I was ringing at 6pm. The system hung up on me.

Call 6, 5 mins: Phone system hung up on me.

Call 7, 5 mins: System hung up on me again. Can the system tell I’m ringing on a competitor’s phone?

Call 8, 4 mins: System hung up on me again. The system can definitely tell I’m on a competitor’s phone.

Call 9, 60 mins: I waited for an hour on hold, and eventually got through to a nice, friendly guy, who easily set up the new connection. See – easy.

There are a lot of ways that this experience could be improved, by applying some basic usability principles:

• Ensure that I am given appropriate feedback: tell me where I am in the queue, so that I can make an informed decision about whether to stay on the line or call back later.

• Ensure that the phone system is consistent: hearing a never-ending ring tone (like in call 3) was inconsistent with my expectations and experiences with other systems.

• Ensure that I am able to recover from errors: I made a mistake by ringing the wrong number in Call 2. The system made a mistake of making me start from scratch.

There are many more best practice guidelines on improving the usability of phone systems. (Drop me some email if you’d like to know more.) Many of the guidelines are based on underlying usability principles that apply regardless of the technology. It’s all about understanding human behaviour.