Adaptive Path Blog

Many times, the most effective interactions aren’t media- and or technology-based. They are just people, interacting with each other. I was reminded of this today at SFO, waiting for my flight to Las Vegas for the IA Summit.

I travel a lot. As I stood at the check-in kiosk, staring at the “delayed” notice flashing insistently at me, I got that sinking feeling in my stomach, felt my bags get heavier and my throat get drier. Travel stress set in.

I staggered over to the security line, boarding passes and ID in one hand, wallet in the other. My backpack and camera bag were falling off my shoulders.

“If you are carrying mascara, toothpaste, mouthwash, hair gel, whiskey, vodka, liquid makeup, lipstick, lotion, or any other liquid it must be under 3 ounces and you must remove it from your bag for inspection. All liquids must be under 3 oz in size. This means that if you have a 9 oz tube of toothpaste with only one ounce of toothpaste left in it, you cannot take it through security. If you have water bottles you must…”

Like a town crier, the TSA officer’s booming voice listed the things you could bring and the things you couldn’t. He cracked some jokes. People giggled. They asked him questions.

He went on and on. “He thinks he’s funny,” I muttered. But I wasn’t laughing — I was tired and annoyed. Just as I began to feel like some sad proletariat in an anti-utopian novel, I heard the following exchange:

“Do they make you say that stuff?” a passenger asked. My ears perked up.

“No, but it seems to help.” the TSA officer said brightly. “We have this sign,” he gestured towards a sign I had completely missed, “but it turns out nobody reads the sign and nobody listens to recorded voices.”

Standing there, stressed out in the security line, I was reminded:

I can design all the signs I want.

I can record James Earl Jones dramatically reading liquid requirements.

I can make web sites, pamphlets, and kiosks.

But, if harried air travelers don’t listen to recorded voices and they don’t read the signs, well, I might as well be Sisyphus, pushing a giant rock up a hill for all eternity. And I’ll bet a bazillion dollars those harried travelers aren’t checking the web site for liquid regulation updates.

As the TSA officer reminded me, people will listen to a human being, especially a funny one, standing right in front of them. If he tells them what they need to know and nicely answers questions they have, well, the travelers might actually listen. His solution may not be elegant or flashy, but it worked.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 at 7:16 pm and is filed under Communication, Experience Design, Idealism (Uncensored), Interaction Design, Service Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

This post is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.