Theresa Wilkinson

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Adapting to Bad Design - Theresa Wilkinson

People never cease to fascinate me. Every research study I conduct teaches me something new, but one of the most intriguing studies I did was on a customer service application, InQuira, at an insurance company.

As I conducted contextual inquiries with the customer support staff over several days, I was fascinated to discover that most of them did not use InQuira as intended. They didn't use the search functionality at all. One CSR even told me how long it took to perform a search and get results (not always the correct ones)-203 seconds, if you're curious.

If they weren't using the product, how did they help customers? They adapted. People are remarkably adept at adapting to their environments because they have had to do it for millions of years. Without adaptation, we wouldn't survive.¹

Pain Points of the System

• The InQuira system is challenging to use, and the search function is ineffective.
• Finding information takes 203 seconds-and it may not even be the correct information-impacting the CSR's Average Call Time (ACT).
• Fifty percent of support calls require information that is only available in InQuira.
• If a CSR cannot find the solution, they must call the Help Desk and wait for an answer, further impacting ACT.

So, how did CSRs find the information they needed to do their jobs? They adapted:

• 43% (10 out of 23) used PLMR Subscriptions
• 30% (7 out of 23) used shared PowerPoint decks
• 13% (3 out of 23) used screen-savers with PLMRs
• 9% (2 out of 23) called the Help Desk
• 4% (1 out of 23) used Post-It Notes with PLMRs

CSRs created what they called "subscriptions" --lists of links to the PLMRs. A PLMR is the page within InQuira containing the necessary claim information. CSRs shared updated subscriptions in daily huddle meetings. One even created a PowerPoint that resembled an iPad, populated with PLMRs. Experienced CSRs also emailed their subscription lists to new staff, who were more likely to abandon the search and call the Help Desk due to insecurity.

These CSRs adapted remarkably well to bad design to perform their jobs successfully. As Rick Potts, director of the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History, said:

"We share information, we create and pass on knowledge. That's the means by which humans are able to adjust to new situations, and it's what differentiates humans from our earlier ancestors, and our earlier ancestors from primates."¹

¹ Massey, Nathanael & ClimateWire, 25 September 2013, "Humans May Be the Most Adaptive Species" (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-may-be-most-adaptive-species/)

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