How does a Small Design Flaw Create a Negative Experience.

Sharing a Story of a Volume icon

One of my friends bought a new #Tatanexon. He took me for a drive and asked me to connect my cellphone to car’s infotainment system for playing music. I connected my phone and played a song from my phone, however we could not hear anything from car’s speakers.

We saw the sound icon on the infotainment system of the car had a cross on it and we thought the speakers were muted. So I tapped the icon to turn on the sound icon. Since, now it showed the icon without cross, we thought we unmuted the speakers, yet the song was not audible. So I retapped it and tried to raise the volume up and down, but after all the hustle still no sound.

We both were puzzled as we couldn’t understand the problem. The worst part was that being a UX Designer, I was not able to figure out an interface.

I gave it one more try and accidentally tapped on the volume icon, it changed from un-striked to striked and suddenly speakers were working.

At this point I figured out that there was a problem with the relevance of the Volume icon on the infotainment system. The image you see below is an unmuted state of the Speakers which is oposite to those we see on Tv remotes, speaker Remotes etc.

The problem was still existing. Was it a deliberate attempt by the company or an honest error? So I thought to put my theory to the test.

So, after that whenever I was in the car with different people I used to ask them to connect their phones and play the song and observed their reaction. Guess what? People did have the same problem that we had and they were as frustrated as we were.

Later on, I tried to reach out to Tata to understand their side of the story and to let them know that it is creating a negative experience for their customers. I tweeted about it and they were very generous to respond, they took it as feedback. Maybe it would get fixed soon.

What would I get by sharing my experience?

My friend who thinks I am insane would understand I was conducting research.

The company would try to fix it for the customers so that they can have a better experience.

I would try to urge every designer to find out problems in everyday things and try to fix them so that we can make this world a better place.

At last, I would like to leave you with a question. What would have happened if this was not a design error. but an attempt to redesign the mute and unmute icon?

Do share your views in the comment section.