E214 - Can Games Improve In-Flight Passenger Safety?

Welcome to human factors yeah your weekly podcast for human factors psychology and design. Hello everybody welcome back to another episode human factors gas under host Nick Roman I'm joined today by Mr Blake are in store for. How's it going. Hey Blake it's it's going we're here let's go in we're here we're recording this life on 8/12/2021 this is human factors cast. Right quick programming notes to everybody I am changing my office hours next Tuesday they will not happen they will be happening on Monday instead from 4 to 5:00 PM Pacific a it's not a big change but some the top here for these programming notes in addition to that we got some a little bit different for you all this weekend it's gonna be a fun deviation from our normal deep dives us you may not even may have noticed one of our deep dives is not necessarily missing this week we're just moving it and it's not gonna be on the topic that we talked about last week so it's a we're trying something new with the deep dives. So we're we're gonna try some of these these topics that are of interest let me just say that. That are maybe not covered on the show right to the Olympics just ended. So if you're curious about human factors and the Olympics you might want to check out the deep dive when it drops this weekend so check back for that. Blake is there anything else I feel like I'm there's programming notes but I'm missing them I don't know I think you're good we got some cool stuff coming out from the deep dive side and you change your office hours so I think you're good no big loss what's your name with this anyway you you're here for human factors news. That's right this is the part of the show all about human factors knew this is where we talk about everything related to the field of human factors this week we have gaming and transportation aviation and safety. But it could be anything. But please release the feel of impact is like what's our story this week so this week we're talking a little about how games can influence out passenger safety so a study from the Federal Aviation Administration or the FDA evaluated how series games game the air safety world could be used as a tool for passenger education so serious games as a passive or persuasive technology application developed by the university of you dine in Italy the objective of this project was to improve the level of occupant safety an incident survivability by making information more transparent and effective the flying public through the use of video games this study evaluated information retention results from 3 topics a passenger education information presented to each participant in 3 various ways so a 3 by 3 in the study found that a significant difference in retention was based on the presentation style so after playing the series game retention of information was significantly better than after reviewing the briefing card or a video briefing for all different assessments that were used to having a participant virtually perform the action being taught in it up creating a better understanding of the action and results in resulted in better retention of that information so finding that knowledge retention is improved through an interactive style of information presentation suggests the passenger safety briefing materials using an interactive medium may improve passenger knowledge of safety procedures which could improve adherence to those safety procedures expressly during an emergency. Soon Nick this is something I think we've we've probably touched on a bunch of times throughout the in you know the entirety of the podcast you're using video games and training whether it's like that from a VR headset or just a straight up game to kind of get you immersed in something but I think this is like a great application that we really haven't seen and you know flying and then also passenger safety. Yes so I want to talk about a few things with this but I think just generally this is a this is an awesome story and huge shout out to our patrons are picking this this week it kind of is a a confluence of a lot of interesting things going on here you have games you have aviation you have safety you have training. And and so the one thing that I want to mention right here at the top is that yes we have talked about the V. our applications in the past. And this is not a V. R. application let's get that out of the way but they the video game that they're playing is pretty low fidelity and that's okay it just goes to show that the dell and he does not equal an increase or decrease in efficacy right towards some of these. The training applications. I did my general thoughts on this is that this is kind of what I'm looking for without being too negative here it's it's seemingly obvious that the more that you do to practice something the better retention you will have for that thing. And we can certainly talk about that but I think generally this is a great way to kind of communicate what tasks need to be done in the event of an emergency Blake I wanna get your general thoughts on this piece. Mmhm and I do want to go into the reason why they did this to begin with sure so I mean I hello much like you I don't really know a better way to say it but I think the end of the the blurred kind of summed it up like it does present itself is kind of like a no doubt they should make a little bit more it should have more attention because it's an interactive medium never really because we really kinda look think back and you know think about the fact that like from our regional schooling right for human factors are 8 C. I. anything that deals with either one of those topics it should be kind of obvious that this will happen you'll have a little bit better attention if you're doing some you know almost active learning versus just passively listening to somebody show you a video or talk you through anything because now you have the potential even if it even I guess in a virtual world which I know you're much more familiar with them than I am but the fact that you're you're doing something that's mimicking what the instructions told you to do should just likely give you a little bit more of you know those cognitive markers to know what to do if that situation maybe arose in the real world the the interesting thing is what's that like what's that transfer of knowledge outside of like a pre and post test world like let's say you had an accident on the plane and you had to respond in a certain way based off of any of the topics covered but I think it's a cool first step to show how one maybe we end up making you know the flight experience that much more fun for people or more enjoyable. And potentially actually have people really pay attention and learn how to you you know do things like braces if there was an impact or you know how to use your Oscar oxygen mask appropriately because it's I would imagine and I can't really I can only can really do is speculate but I would imagine that if you were asked to do some of these tasks that you maybe have heard you know 1010 or 20 times or various flights you still may not be able to do them you know very effectively or remember all of the steps so doing something like this it's a little more involved that should provide you with a pretty good trade off of like spending a little bit of time playing a game and then being able to do it actually in the real world so I think it's awesome study but I do agree with you that it it felt like it was pretty obvious at least based off of like the human factors and psychology background that I think we both have okay you brought up some really great points that I want to touch on. So let I don't know where to go let me let me start first by saying I have play tested this I see in this application it's widely available for you to download the game itself is cold air safety world on android and iOS you can go download it played while you're listening to this if you like. And what it does is it sets you basically through to Torio of all the things that you would expect right you can go and do you like. How to put on your best or how to brace for impact or put on the oxygen mask there's a couple other ones like a merchant see exits on a specific model of planes you can you know select if it's an Airbus or Boeing and it will know where the exits are on that specific model even within you know Boeing there's several different models of aircraft and so. You know will know where it is in a place you on a random spot in the airplane I'll tell you where you're looking at there's also how to operate the emergency doors. I thought this was so look like at at it looks hokey like I I want to bring this up on stream but we are an audio podcast I'm gonna try to describe it the best I can it is a a. I don't see low fidelity it's a mobile game and so you look at this and you're like yes that is a mouth mobile quality right. And basically here I have it up for those watching on the stream. It is a mobile quality and and you can see that there are still several different briefings that you can do and I'm basically as they go through it they're instructing you to do these things and. The reason I bring this up is you said for somebody who's been on many flights who's heard this many times before. There's the. Likelihood that even they might not know exactly what to do in the scenario and I like I said spent about 20 minutes on this game earlier going through all the details making sure I understood for you know as research for tonight's episode and you know I I will say I'm honestly a little surprised with how little I knew about some of these tasks so you think about the 5 tasks that I mentioned you know being able to brace for impact. That I knew roughly right like I knew you know if you put your head down I didn't maybe even visualize putting your feet behind your knees or putting your arms under your thighs right I didn't. I didn't think to do all that but now I do right like it's given me a new kind of outlook on this. And at first I was kind of like lukewarm on this study but after do after actually going through doing it like really impressed with this so you know the life vest I didn't you know it's it's where is it located it's under the seat yep pull it out you put it on you strap it over you tighten it up and then you. I'm. You inflate by pulling the tabs you do the oxygen mask right that one I feel like I got down I feel like that once easiest one but the emergency exits was fun too it's like they plop your random part of the plane where is it and they even do like a trick on you right they put you in the back of the plane. And they say where's the nearest one in you look forward right you know like that's that one but no it's actually in the galley behind you it's like it did it it's really cool and then the door operation I would never have thought how to open the door in an airplane because. You should probably hopefully never need it but like you know now I know how to open the door on an airplane because it showed me anyway I'm I've lived needless to say I'm pretty impressed with the capability of being able to show all these and yeah even even the simple interactions of like placing hands on your thighs to to figure out where they go and moving your feet to figure out where they go you know I think that interaction and none of it was enough for me to retain that I did this about 2:00 hours ago. And if you think about flight time you know hopefully it be enough for me to retain during my flight. So I feel like I've been doing a lot of talking. Blake I any any thoughts on what I just said. Yes so I think I mean now looking at the game itself because I hadn't played it so this is really cool just to see kind of the approach they took so basically you're you're almost using your your coach for the game then selecting from these different tasks that Nick talked about and just as like a personal anecdote I've always been terrified that I'm going to have to one day open the emergency door and not know how to do it and it be just terrifying so this seems like it would be a great way to learn how to actually do it right. But I can only imagine that this medium of teaching people things especially the the more intense ones like opening the door because right really showing you any of that stuff physically. It just has probably a better ability to actually teach somebody something even if it was just like a video they were watching because this seems much more in depth than some of the you know quick tutorials Pete like air flight attendants are typically able to get having a like swap out the different piece of equipment they're using and things like that so it I think all in all this again it makes sense but the presentation is really really well done. And I could imagine it would be engaging and definitely like there the retention rate like you're kind of talking about it makes sense because you're you're only going to rape a small amount of material I'm sure the you know experiences are not very long because it's mentally quickly get you informed what you need to know what you need to do and even the study itself then it's both like it's post test formats was finding that there was a lot of the retention even after the you know the typical 90 minute time frame. So it's pretty cool stuff overall let me let me comment on a couple things and then we'll get to some of the chat here so I have I I do want to comment on that length of time. I took like 20 minutes doing this to go through everything. That seems like a long time for me to do this. While I'm sitting on the tarmac and you know I'll I'll even rope in Kristin from chats comment right now. Sounds very beneficial but do you think people will ever really utilize this resource. You know most don't even watch the flight attendants actor this out before the flight so so create great point Kristen and I that brings me back to actually the purpose of this study. Because I think it's hugely important so I wanna bring up a couple of facts here from the article here if I can find or the report rather not medical. So let's just go over some of these these studies here that the FAA has conducted right so in 2000 NTSB did a study investigated 46 accidents. Bunch of people right let's just look at percentages here. Of the 300 77 passengers who reported whether they watch the safety briefing 50 passengers said they didn't watch the briefing 0 82 passengers reported at least they watched at least 75 percent of the briefing 400 57 returned questionnaires to under 47 passengers were reported roughly 54 percent reported they had not watched the entire briefing because they'd seen it before 70 were passengers reported they did not watch the entire briefing because it was basic common knowledge so basically we're seeing really low numbers of people watching the briefing in the first place right here's another study 2009 US Airways the Hudson River the air flight 1549 into the Hudson right NTSB reported that of the 50 passengers. 17 percent reported watching most of the pre flight safety breeding so we only have 17 percent watching most of it right in that accident occurred yeah he appeared to be watching it yeah exactly exactly 19 passengers are 13 percent reported watching some of the demonstration only 8 percent reported reading the safety card before it or during the flight. And so basically you're looking at like 70 percent of the passengers not watching any of the safety briefing and over 90 percent not reading the safety card so the whole reason for this is as an intervention for passenger safety. Kind of like a mandate basically for. For passengers to do now if they can streamline this and make it super easy right like. Yeah I I know there are things where they can't necessarily take off from the tarmac until they've done these briefings right that the flight attendants have to be seated. And they can't do that until after they've given the briefing it's like required by law and so there's a lot that goes into this but if we can figure out some way to streamline this. Show you know there's inflight entertainment a lot of flights now right so maybe you put the game on the touch pad in front of him not that tablets that everyone hang hands out right so yeah it never gets old back right and I will say like doing doing this game playing this game. It was kind of frustrating because it's like it made me want to complete these. In a way that I wasn't let me let me try to explain so they're they grade you on how well you do right so they say like oh well you're late we're not in the right place or your hands were not in the right place. And if you take too long doing it they're like you did it but it was slow and so like the reason I did that for 20 minutes is because I had to go back right and there is a there's something that you can do on these flights with in flight entertainment that would make this. Basically almost a requirement right what if you had to go through this training before you could get the in flight entertainment. That would be awesome I think that's one of the better ways to just a second what is a service yeah yeah I mean it's like a to Torio before you can get in right I mean they don't let you do it before you even get in the air anyway most times so it's like you know have it have it you know that they still do the safety briefing but then do this right before you get on to any of the in flight entertainment and sure it's not gonna hit everybody some people have laptop some people have phones that they look at what it's going to hit what like 80 percent so you put those numbers for 70 percent not watching any a safety briefing to 70 percent engaging with this type of game that's required before they can get to their in flight entertainment and sure they might just like click through click through click through provide an option to skip whatever but if it's there probably most people do it or more people will pay attention to it than they are now right yeah because you can kind of manager right so you could require you know the ones that are definitely required by law for you to know similar to the things you do for like when they do the safety briefing like buckling your seatbelt doing the oxygen and all that kind of stuff so you don't have to like Mandy the your get your 0 percent yet are getting all the achievements all the way through but the fact that you have interacted with it kind of provides that consent on both sides that you hat you understand the information you need to be in charge of the one thing I want to ask you Nick is you mentioned that it's on android iOS is that the like intended implementation because like to Kristen's point again in a different light I think I would I would have a harder time thinking I was going to do anything related to it if it required me to download something to my phone and I I imagine there's other people out there they would think the same and so they would avoid it all together so I think your idea of like integrating it into the infotainment systems is excellent because it's again like you're you're being rewarded with getting into the infirmary infer infotainment system yeah that's the way I see it working if at all this this application this game. Is actually developed by H. C. I. lab over at. University of U. P. am not quite sure what that is I'm looking it up right now so you dine so they basically put out this game as a training application and it seems like they are actually getting. You know grants from the FAA to do safety research. M. AG but it seems like there are some other people out there who treat it like a full blown game so I'm not sure how that exactly works anyway the. I love everyone of those people that treat that like a football game amazing it's talking about fleets of planes and stuff and you know it's like aircraft air traffic control basically I could be so fun for kids I would imagine like special ed for an aircraft and stuff like that like I didn't even think of the you know across the different versions of aircraft are out there you have different you know safety features or whatever they may be on them so that's that's cool I could see how people would enjoy the game if they're like a big aviation had. Yeah it's it is kind of cool right so they they have a whole series of games and they even have an emergency water landing and B. R. if you want to try that out so let's go. There's some pretty cool stuff on this on their website so you know go check him out but you mentioned a point that I want to get back to and I forgot what it was can you please spark my memory again it was about. It was about the intent or maybe something else I forget I've. That's the problem with recording these live folk Axel absolutely 11 thing I did want to bring up because I have not necessarily heard games talked about in the with this permit was a pervasive technology as an application or persuasive technology that as an application and that was it so I I grabbed the broad definition of it so it's using technology is designed to change our attitudes or behaviors and that's it's almost like okay that's that psychology in general is trying is trying to understand and change behavior but it's not something that I really had seen use a lot of times but apparently it's pretty prevalent in terms of design of software in HCI and things like that so for anybody out there who had never really heard that term used as applied to video games. So I I do think is interesting because actually I'm pretty sure Matteo put something in that chat related to this but it seems like this serious games offshoot from the university in Italy has had impact in this kind of like training safety and various forms are not just in aviation but another kind of like dangerous industries as well so it's kind of cool that they're continuing to really focus on training and safety through game playing even though like you said it's it's kind of lo fi game playing if you well although what you showed me I was much more impressed with that look like some you know more modern Sam's looking stuff than I expected but definitely a a cool field of study to be an at this point. Yeah I agree I am I will say you know if you're if you're watching live. Encourage you to check out twitch chat mentales been posting a bunch of really helpful extra links here for. You know as it pertains to aviation safety and gaming so so go check those out. My tails on it he's he's there just posting all these links. Yeah I don't know how much else I have to say about this other than I think this is. An interesting application. And can be really powerful if they integrate it correctly. You know and and I I think this obviously transfers to other domains and we will get to that in just a minute but you know any other closing thoughts on how this relates to aviation safety Blake I think I think one thing that I would be careful of and I I want to keep an eye on how all the the studies go from you dine and the serious games application here because it's it's cool that the because basically the way the study was put together is it was a 3 by 3 designed so it was you know taking passengers have been do 3 separate tasks so the brace position like Nick talked about that's like putting your hands on your knees and like bending over bracing for impact put it on your life S. as well as putting on an oxygen mask and then the 3 levels of me are mediums that they were tested on or given the safety features on were either a briefing card video or this series game which is so funny after looking at that screen shots over the name is great but that so like the 3 levels seem like it K. it could capture anybody's attention across the 3 so the briefing card could be like the quick and dirty way of picking up anything video is a little bit more involved within the series game is like very interactive so it I think based off of what we know about information processing right like it's obvious that as you go up from each of these mediums that we should see kind of the video and the video game really providing a little bit more information retention maybe because they're also able to provide more detailed information about these various procedures that what you might find a just an illustration like the comic illustrations they show and briefing cards. So it's one of those things where I would hope that they kind of keep all of the mediums of training for the interim because I think getting like I could imagine My Girl if my grandmother was alive like getting on a plane and like having to interact with something digital it might be hard for her to do so having you know the video format is great so I think it's just something that. All of the game has a lot of potential in terms of you know trainability and learning a lot of active skills I think for the interim until we can really figure out what the best way to present all these things are having multiple mediums across all all that really makes the most sense. Yeah I think I think you're right I I I I think this is a yes and the situation where yes this works and we're gonna can keep doing the briefings that we're doing now right especially for. You know like you said the folks who may not be so technology literate. And and you know. But I think the certain this service kind of the opposite end of the spectrum bring into coming here from Matteo who says this this might be engaging and fun and could take away from the frustration of having to have a good view of the attendant and being able to re watch could help with. People with anxiety who are flying solo or who just have anxiety about being on airplanes in general right you know knowing this stuff might be much better for them then you know because sometimes sometimes you'll be sitting in a row and the flight attendant is right behind you and you can't really turn around to see them and the other flight attendant is way in front of you so you can't really see what they're doing you really have a good view of what's going on sometimes they just play video and they're fun and they got you know lego characters on them or whatever but. Most of the time you're looking at a real world attendant and if you can integrate this into the in flight entertainment that's almost a standard now except for like spirit and frontier you know. I mean I don't know how they're gonna do it on their they hand out like on the old 22009 tablets or something and. That's all they can for anyway yeah I I think. I think you're right it's a yes and situation where they are bringing in old the old way of presenting this information for those who need it and then also the new way of information to help with some of this retention right. And I. Yeah go ahead it I just want to follow up on kind of but the second half of that comment from Matteo and it is something I would be really interesting interested to understand more about is does this provide any kind of buffer for somebody who feels anxious about flying because I'm definitely one of those people I do not like getting in airplanes I don't like flying at all but this kind of stuff I could see how it could make you feel more confident if things were to go wrong like that you feel like you know what the correct steps are or you feel like you could you know effectively execute them in the end to the point of the the game's design it's meant to show you more than what they can what they typically show you and that like 5 to 10 minutes before you take off so would be cool if if some of that like study cash I guess that goes to understanding safety and their attention and then the application. I'll be playing these kind of games and seeing like 2 people just watch the stuff more. Lee what what happened in terms of anxiety and would be you'll be able to get over kind of you know in flight fears and stuff like that. Yeah any other points that you wanna make with this story before we move on to some of the social thoughts no just really stoked at the community picked it because this is something I was really really interested in grad school and what I what I kind of want to do somewhat of my thesis on was understanding the impacts video games to training and its transfer to the real world so this is cool to get a glimpse of that that's still being done maybe like in 2021 so like you know 8 years later yeah 1 last point I'll make Matteo brought it up here there's another app for in flight oddities like what's happening or. And of the status of the plane as you're flying to help with some of that fighting side and I know I certainly have that up all the time not necessarily as a as a anxiety suitor but. This is a way to understand what's going on where where am I in relation to the world you know they have that like tracker anyway I want to move on I did we did ask on all of our socials earlier today once we knew what the story was going to be I think we're gonna start doing this we're gonna call it social thought this is kind of a way for you all to interact with us you know everyone likes here in their name read on the show and. It's a way for us to connect with you as well to bring in the thoughts from the community on. The story so if you're looking now for a look out for on Thursdays we're gonna drop them as soon as we know what the story is for the day so we did you know we did say looks like tonight's news stories all about effectiveness of gaming as a training tool we specifically ask have any of you had experience with using games as training and we heard back from friend of the pod Ken Catchpole. And he writes about 20 years ago I worked with X. ray screeners in UK airports using game type concepts to improve knife gun and bomb detection in baggage and I I I've shot back I was like oh that's awesome is there you know any any efficacy improvements from using this and he said absolutely and a range of other benefits including better selection and career structure so thanks for writing in can that's that's super awesome and I'm here for more of you so if you see our our stuff out there we're gonna post it I think on Twitter and Instagram and our our slack and discord channels as well so be on the look out for those. All right like any other last thoughts here no I think that pretty much wraps it up that's awesome that that that there was a lot of experience from the community about about like applications and games of various fields I'm in it all seems like there's a lot of benefit to the aviation field in general. Yeah I agree well huge thank you to our patrons this week for 2 for selecting our topic and huge thank you I guess the FAA and the civil aerospace medical institute for our news story this week if you want to follow along you can join me for office hours are Mondays right find these new stories and we do post links to the original article's on our weekly round ups on our blog you can also join us on a slack or discord to get more involved in these discussion on the stories were to take a quick break and we'll get back to see what's going on in the human factors community or right after this human factors cast brings you the best in human factors news interviews conference coverage and overall fun conversations into each and every episode we produce but we can't do it 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patron you know that we do human factors minute. A ton of fun for us to put together and really educational for you so if you if you like the show wanna help support us financially that might be right for you. Okay let's switch gears and get into this next part of the show we like to call stupid graphics came. Like update the progress I don't know. One day one day. The stupid graphic that Nick may let's be clear all right. This is the part of the show called it came from that's where we look all over the internet to bring new topics the community is talking about any topic is fair game as long as we can talk about it as human factors professionals okay we got a couple tonight they're all from the user experience I've read it so we'll get that out of the way. Okay this first one 's kind of a doozy here Blake. It's from. Aurora daydream on the user experience I've read this is I've always heard about developers not taking designer seriously. But didn't have that happen to me until today I started working at a new company a couple weeks back and came up with a solution for a minor problem which was validated by all relevant stakeholders meanwhile the devils are not happy with the usability of the solution this is something that affects less than one percent of the users so there are a couple more steps than ideal and the solution since the focus was not making it the biggest action on the page. The devs decide they want to pitch their own solution the way the sprint bye week and propose the most out of context bizarre solution we went ahead with my original proposal ocean but I feel like this whole scenario came from 0 trust in the designers not sure if I'm looking for advice or just ranting. Let's talk about it this way Blake have you ever experienced push back from a developer have they ever gone behind your back and implemented the solution that's not what you wanted. And or have you ever had a kind of a situation where you need to navigate this delicate balance of not ruining professional relationships and communicating effectively. Yeah yeah 0 percent in so to give a little context and this is why I'm really interested in this question contacts for me so in in a lot of my experience my working with developers is a very kind of like silo to fact so being a contractor I don't necessarily work with a in house developer I work with contracting firms. That's typically that's typically how things are run now I've for anybody that knows me one thing that I have started doing is doing more development so I've been able to act as in house developer for a little while but this is a an all familiar situation. Just because of you know differences in needs opinions you know interpretations of you know what's usable what's not that kind of stuff but it's interesting here because the way I'm reading this and if you have a different Ritesh and Nick let me know but it sounds like this is all in house all working on a product together yeah I'm in still seeing some some similar type away personality push back type stuff well one thing that I guess sticks out to me the most and I wish we could like have these people on the podcast or on twitch to tell us a little bit more about the situations because when you see like the dads are not happy with the usability of the solution in this case what does that mean like what what is the usability issue and they describe it a little bit more that like maybe there's a few more steps and so sometimes sometimes what I have found is people get very hung up on here respects in user experience design particularly like if it's less clicks then it's better well yeah I for a performance standpoint sure but it's not it does always optimize the experience or make the most sense is to reduce every kind of click path so there may be more to it here but to get more to the point of like is this coming from my developers not trusting me maybe but I would read into this little bit more than life I would say the developers maybe don't feel like they're included in in or part of the design process and so it like when we started this off Nick you ask like have you experienced this kind of thing in the past and of course yes I've run into it more than once. But the way that I've found a way to navigate it black outside of just having a conversation or like bringing up user interaction data or like using stake holders help is trying to include the development team in the design process more an integrated fashion sometimes I can make them feel like they understand why the solution is the way it is. And it's specially if we go back to kind of a thanks the statement they make here like all of the rest of the relevant stakeholders validate the solution we were developers are relevant stakeholder the people are going to actually build this solution so they use or have something to actually interact with so it I think it just comes from maybe they don't trust you or maybe you just don't feel like they're included enough in the process so they understand why changes are being requested made because keep in mind develop it's not always easy and so sometimes maybe keeping things as they are is simpler and it makes more sense and cost less time so delaying a sprint to go through a different type of solution sometimes you can expect that and it's just like a back and forth you have to have but Sir Nick from your perspective I mean if you run into this before where like you're working on a project you come up with the design concept with your designer and you park report proposes the development team and I don't want to implement it. Yeah I've definitely run into this before. I so I agree with a lot of what you're saying Blake I think the biggest thing is that you want to include the Dev team on the design solution or at least get their feedback before you come down on the final solution right so. I was working on a project and. I think there's there's one specific example I'm thinking of all leave out details here. How to respect for the people I was working with but basically the idea is that. They couldn't do what we were asking them to do. For the product. With the the basically the outcome that we were hoping for without that kind of restructuring the code behind it right so it's a big overhaul to do the thing that we are asking and. I'm. They had agreed to it up front thinking that they could do it and then. I think it was kind of a lack of communication on their part they did not tell us that they could not be done until we had already moved on to the next thing. And so they came up with their own solution and did the thing and it was in their mind what the best solution was and we kind of came back and said well no we thought the other thing was gonna work. And so we worked with them to find out you know what other solutions we could use or do using the code that was you know when possible within the code but say that so. It was a huge headache because we were trying to communicate we are trying to involve them and even to the best of our ability we did involve them and they thought it was possible but it actually wasn't and so you know even in cases like that you'll run into it and it was one of those scenarios where it was contracted developer and so it wasn't in house it's not like I could just walk over to the next office over and say Hey what's going on with this or you know they couldn't walk over to us and say Hey what's going on with this despite us saying you know our phones are open just let us know and so. That makes it difficult and so that the best thing I can do is you know try to encourage that open communication Hey if you run into anything you're not sure about just let us know we'll be happy to. You know go over some of the details that we found our usability study with you to see what might what else might work if this doesn't work I don't have a hard time with this question because. You know I've I think. If there is always that. Level of. So it's not disrespect what's the word I'm looking for it's like. Basically developers don't necessarily trust you because you're coming in and telling them what to do and so like like we said you know involve them in the process as much as you can and when you can't show them how you got to your solution right show them the data that you got from your usability study and that will make a large difference for the way that they perceive. The solution right you say it's not me telling you to do this it's the users that are asking for this thing the users that need this thing. And so kind of creating that empathy for the user. As kind of the the prime solution it sounds like a a little bit different here because this is part of the one percent of users. Which it sounds like a power user thing to me and so they'll get used to it anyway that's just my opinion but you know could be a little bit different in this context but I don't know I I it's a it's a tough situation no matter where you're coming from and you know just treat it with care I guess is my best. But my best advice there anything else that would like. One just like wind tidbit here for like a day especially since this is a this is a designer and it's something I can identify with especially being somebody who's focused a lot of the last year point 5 on front end development and running in 2 cases where I have to go back to my team and be like there's just no way I I can hello and develop that solution we have to think of another design solution and here's X. Y. NZ we can do. Is if you really feel like you're running into a case where your developers don't trust you you may need to just interact with them about that specific thing it's not easy to do it's not easy conversation to have but I think sometimes designers can run into that they they start designing solutions they prototype and test those solutions in a vacuum away from the development team without understanding what are the limitations of the existing framework or code that's already built or budget and timeline so interacting with your development team to understand those things that's what I'm talking about when you're when I'm talking about understanding how to bring them into the design process. And having them be you know flies on the wall for user testing is a great way to to also let them see like you know I get that this thing that you guys are not happy with from a usability perspective makes sense you have rationale for about from an end user point of view it's affecting like nobody and not anybody that can get around it so it's it's just something that you have to really try to be proactive about it I don't think anybody teaches you this kind of stuff in school or you know it's something you get mentor on Europe you know first few years in a job so don't feel bad about it there's plenty of proactive ways to go and get respect or get on the same page your development team you had a good segue in there somewhere about you know designing in a. Hello the vacuum yeah there you go some of them I'm gonna beat into this next question because I feel like that is a great. Segue I feel like I suck at my job this is from Saturday gal at sanity DL from the user experience already I'm working in a large organization got put on a team working on one of their apps it's only my fifth week and the industry slash product is complicated so they said all will take around 6 months for me to get. Basically get it I was tasked with coming up with some ideas for a new product feature and it's like I completely missed the mark I just over designed in was to visionary with it this is the second time this has happened but I kind of just have to go for it because I don't have much knowledge the users are the product. That's even what they said to do this they know I'm green but it's embarrassing and our group discussions I've shut down because I feel like I don't know enough to add to the conversation if that makes sense on top of that I keep missing small details that I don't think they understand the way I work by going big picture then details later I feel anxious and on edge my manager keeps reassuring me but I feel like I don't mash and come off completely uneducated do you X. also on managed issues with attentiveness and focus and I have trouble focusing and listening to conversations through a screen all day I feel like **** help me. Wow that's really heavy. It's Nick I want to take a different approach to how I answer some of these I happen to read something today and I think it fits really well into it subs I'm gonna read like a blurb you mean it I've got about this yeah so so failure is part of success allows us to improve when we should be angry about it and when you open up your mind set and you try to just free yourself up to just try and get rid of the fear of failure you often find you'll be more successful down the road and that's really what this sounds like to me is you have walked into something brand new and I don't know what large organization means but it probably means something pretty intense if they're telling you you're not gonna understand really how to make an impact before you hit the 66 months mark that means they've paid attention to the people they've brought in and they've measured and done the work to figure out how long it takes for people wrap their head around how we work what we expect the quality of work the product whatever so I mean I'd I would just take this is a great opportunity for obviously you made a you made and it's only your fifth week if you feel like you're failing that's okay B. super active and proactive about getting feedback and understanding like okay what if I feel like I'm falling short what am I actually falling short and then to what are things that I can work on or think about it does sound like that you're probably in some tough conversations. Which is going to happen I mean it in a lot of log in a lot of larger corporations they have different types of cultures sometimes it's you know be who you are and they can be really a tough environment for somebody it's new to a large organization and if you're noticing that you're you're missing small details or you think big picture first one way that I've gotten around that before is setting expectations when we start meetings of Hey guys. Don't focus on details focus on whatever whatever the main goal for trying to get to as don't worry so much about all of the little tiny things we haven't I haven't figured out yet because I'm not in that phase of design but ultimately you kind of have to figure out what works best for you and the team to work on. But Nick have you have you ever felt this way and if if you have like what have you done to try and mitigate some of it Blake let me tell you we picked this during the pre show I didn't read through the whole thing I read like little excerpts but reading it tonight it felt like this is a younger me writing. My experience with a job that I had so like I had no idea the domain I feel like I came in. Tried to do what they ask of me and just felt like. It wasn't. We're looking for I wasn't. Satisfactory and. What I did was I started a podcast because I felt like I needed to show my intelligence some other way and as sad as an answer that is I'm. I like. It took a very long time it took about 6 months for me to get comfortable with the team that I was working with. And the projects that I was working on. Before I felt like I was kind of up to speed and there are just industries where you will spend years working on something and still feel like you just have no idea. And. It sucks it does suck it real it really bad. I'm like I will say there are domains that took me years to understand. That's because I had no prior experience with them it's because I had you know the the limited access to users will say that and the people who do it did have access to users. Maybe didn't communicate what needed to be communicated down and so it made a very tough working environment. I'm. All I can say is try your best I mean if it is a large organization the best you can do in your free time. Is to research who you're working for and the product that you're on. I think you know there that that was something that helped me out a lot you know there are publicly available things a lot of the times that you can look up to see more information on that you know if you can get an understanding of something if you don't understand ask somebody and see if there's reading materials that you can get to help better wrap your head around this problem. It's tough it's really tough and I feel like I'm talking to. You know early career Nick I I do I feel like this is me writing a couple years ago it really sucks and I'm very sorry that you're experiencing this. I don't know what else to say like it gets better. I don't know it does I mean if this is so early in the game for this person 5 I just yeah if you can like B. 8 B. retrospective and think about the fact that you're you're working in a large organization so something got you to the dance so you know how to do something and that's a good side it's not easy to get in large companies I don't know I don't know which one this is or who it is or what the product is. But it's not an easy thing to do so if you feel like your team around you is supportive like. Take the support and continue to try and grow I think it I mean Nick I think you're right I think at this time needs to go by and they need to be more comfortable in their skin at at the job. Yeah either that or form connections with the people like you said Blake that are working with you and and make them like you enough to not can you if you still don't understand the product after year so I mean you know there's that approach to. I'm gonna leave it there I I'm really sorry that sucks and I totally I totally get it all right let's get into this next 1 here is it normal for you X. tests to keep failing this is by sad mustache on the user experience subreddit I am a developer that worked with the U. X. team I know just basics of U. axe I have been writing tests for you acts and majority of them fail the website looks out dated something from mid or early 2010 it's really disheartening to see the majority of my work to be discarded so I wonder if that's normal do majority of U. X. tests are meant to fail. Blake do you design your U. X. tests to fail. Absolutely not although sometimes you're you're asking questions and one of the answers can be your sale or it's not good. But this is this is kind of an interesting one because it's the polar opposite of the first question you have got a developer asking us about writing you access I'm a little confused on what writing a U. X. test would be in this kind of situation I would imagine baby there's specific unit test you could be writing they're really focused on user experience and like front end issues obviously keep failing bats that's awful because it's happening in a development side of things then then you probably really do have an issue there also seems to be something going on here with that developer feel like their work's getting tossed out based on some of these tasks to you so I don't know I mean you don't want to continue failing you access now that's not a great thing it could have to do with how you're putting together if you're asking the wrong questions you have the wrong users but usually you you kind of start to get a sense of that early on I said it may mean that it's time to really take a step back and stop running tastic I think about like what has the data told you thus far about why there's failure in some of these you access again I would love to bring people out like this was a radio show and talking about these things because I I want to have like a good operational definition here what you X. test means yeah but none the less Nick do you think is okay my interpretation of this is that they are coding up prototypes and. This to me is. Could be at fault of the U. acts are human factors person on the team who is failing to develop prototypes that are appropriate for the stage that they're at. You know if you're if you're still trying to figure out whether or not a design would work and you're asking somebody to code that design up so that way can be tested that feels like a waste of resources to me there are ways that you can test things like mock ups or power point. Interface you know test that to begin with instead of a full blown test. It could also be you know coding up an AB test I don't I'm I'm again I'm sure like you are Blake of what you axe test means but. What I'm understanding is that they are. They are testing prototypes especially if they are testing something mid to early 2010. That sounds like something that's probably really flat maybe wire frame me designed to me. And maybe the U. X. person or human factors person isn't communicating exactly what they're testing. I think there are ways to get around it to the point where. They're only coding up like a final solution. And this just seems wasteful to me. In terms of whether or not you design K. U. X. tests to fail I don't think you do I think you design you X. tests to be exploratory right. You have a hunch about something if it works then your hunches validated if it does not work then you go back to the drawing board literally and figure out something else that's going to potentially work but if you've done your research on your users and know what they need then theoretically you should never need to get to the point where you. So what I'm looking for you don't eat you don't need to redo the work right you just add to it it's the whole iteration cycle right. You'll have some degree of understanding to begin with and so you start with that and then you come back and. All the work isn't thrown out maybe some of it right but it feels like in this case they are literally A. B. testing something from the get go and don't quite understand. The user maybe they got the person from the second question here I don't know I think maybe he. Yeah I don't know this is a tough one because they don't come from the Dev world but I do understand empathy and communication and so I think that's really important so. If you're listening communicate with your developers and communicate with your other you with your team that's that's the bottom line for me. Absolutely one thing here too just like we recommended for the user experience person and. Ask questions go talk to the U. X. team and kind of understand what the process is because maybe that'll help illuminate to them like how you feel because I think it's important for anybody to know that you feel like you're works being discarded if your user experience designer if you're H. I. practitioner of your developer or whatever they you shouldn't be feeling that way and if if there is rationale for it if you know it maybe it'll change your opinion but like they said this feels like an odd use of resources. Given that if you're just developing something you don't think it even looks right and that it's failing her quote unquote not succeeding in anyway telling people tell your acting what they need to know just a good time to have a conversation with the team yeah all right no time for one more thing tonight but that's gonna be it for today everyone let us know what you guys think of a news story this week do you like games do you like airplanes going out with us on our slack or discord get to us on any of our social channels let us know visit our official website sign up for our newsletter stay up to date with all the latest human factors news if you like what you hear want to support the show there's a couple things you can do one leave us a 5 star review that it's completely free for you to do that for your time really appreciate those tell your friends about us that's number 2 you know that helps show grow if you like it chances are your friends and colleagues alike the show as well 3 if you're able to consider supporting us on Patreon we will always take your dollars but we'll get back to you for doing so there's always links to all of our socials and our website or the description of this episode I don't think Mr Blake aren't being on the show today regular listeners going find you if they want to talk about flying games. You guys can always find me inside of the human factors caste discord or slack at Blake and you can find me across social media don't panic attacks as for me I mean her Nick Rome you can find the streaming on twitch Mondays at 4:00 Pacific for office hours and across social media at Nick _ Rome thanks again for tuning into human factors cast until next time. It depends.