The Waiting is the Hardest Part, by Jeffrey Veen

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

I'm sitting in a usability session for a Web site with streaming audio. The woman at the computer says, "Oh, Real Audio... I don't like that at all."

"Why's that?" I ask.

"Oh, it's always rebuffing. I click on the link and the player comes up and it just keeps rebuffing."

"Rebuffing?"

"Yeah," she says, getting exasperated just thinking about it. "Rebuffing 50%. Rebuffing 80%. Rebuffing 95%. It's really annoying."

"Oh, that! Sure. That is annoying."

All she knew what that when the music stopped, the player rebuffed her. No wonder she didn't like it! Slow connections and buffering really can be a pain, especially when we use jargon in our interfaces that make no sense to folks out there.

This entry was written by Jeffrey Veen and posted 25 May 2004 at 5:40 PM. It was filed under Technology. | View blog reactions

Comments

1. On 26 May 2004 at 9:01 AM Nick Finck wrote:

It is a "slow connection" or is it really an issue related to a "slow server"? ...at any rate I have several quite different reasons why I don't like RealAudio.

2. On 26 May 2004 at 9:57 AM Chris Frazier wrote:

My reason for hating RealAudio is the lack of anything even close to, "It really whips the llama's ass!" in the greeting media. If you can't get THAT right, then how can you possibly build a workable media player.

I must admit, however, that there is something charming about the brain teasing game of "find the free player" that was on their website. While the replayability of the puzzle was low, the initial time through was always challenging.

3. On 26 May 2004 at 11:51 AM John Dowdell wrote:

If you could re-do everything from scratch, then how would you handle that interface language for a global consumer audience?

Would it be an instruction like "Please wait", or some type of explanation of what the machine is doing like... like, hmm, I'm not sure how to best say "Please wait while I get the next five seconds of sound" or whatever.

I understand that the word "buffering" is not in the everyday vocabulary of most people, but I'm not yet sure what a more graceful and universal method might be...?

Regards,
John Dowdell
Macromedia Support

4. On 26 May 2004 at 12:37 PM veen wrote:

I would probably do a research study to figure out how a consumer audience though about streaming technology. I'd ask them to draw me a picture of how it works (this is connected to this, which is over here, etc.) or just get them to talk through it. Listen to the words people use, see what their mental model is, then match the interface and nomenclature to those expectations.

Consider a car. Do most people care about opening up the fuel injectors, mixing with air in the carburetor, causing internal combustion? Nah, they just learn that the Gas Pedal makes you Go Faster.

5. On 2 June 2004 at 1:11 PM Jay Jones wrote:

I think the user would have complained no matter *what* it was called. Buffering, streaming, retreiving data, whatever. The whole point is that they are tired of waiting. You could name it, "We love our users!" and they'd complain, "Aww, they're doing that 'we love our users' garbage again!"

I agree that, perhaps, there could be a better word for it, but... why? As Jeff's title aptly says, "The Waiting is the Hardest Part".

I think the only real way to enhance the user's experience in this case is to offer them a lighter object to load, avoiding the long buffering altogether, or enhance the buffering system so it actually streams the content in more smoothly.