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December 7, 2005 - Automated phone systems

One of the necessary evils of the modern connected world is the automated phone system. All large companies have them, of course, often with disastrous results. And oftentimes, the rest of the systems the company uses are as bad or worse. Of course, there's never a "talk to a person" option, which is the only real reason anyone would call a phone number in the first place. These are some of my random observations on the subject:

The voice is (almost) always female. Go on, try and find an a utomated system with a male voice. I don't think they exist. And some of them refer to themselves in the first person; "I am your automated assistant". It weirds me out when they do that, but maybe that's because I'm a programmer. I would much rather have a system say "your command was not understood" than "I didn't understand that".

I called Cingular today. Their automated system is pretty average and standard. They list the options, you pick one, and you go on. One annoying thing (and this happens with multiple companies) that violates every rule of everything is that these systems don't fail fast. What that means is that when you know that something is not going to work out, you should stop the entire process as soon as possible. When I called the first time, I went through half a dozen menus and a few minutes of voice-overs and prompts, only to be told "our offices are closed". It should be the other way around; the first thing I hear when I call should be "our offices are closed, but you can still use our automated options".

Relatedly, I don't understand what the Cingular system does. For a phone company, their backend sure needs work. I gave the automated prompt some information (phone number, zip code), and then when a person came on the line, the very first thing they asked for was that same information. And then I had to give it again to three more people in the course of the conversation. The only redeeming feature is that it tells you what your estimated wait time is, which can be useful. Thumbs down.

Conversely, I remember calling Dell awhile back. I selected my three options from the menu, and bang, I was on with a real person. And the best part is, whatever system they're running used caller ID to get my number, then brought up all my information immediately. I never had to give the guy any information; it seemed almost magic. "Hi, the hard drive in my laptop died." "Oh, I see it's a Latitude D600, shipped in April 2004, on a 3-year warranty. No problem sir, I'll send a new one out right away. You're still in Redmond, Washington, right? I'll email the tracking numbers to you, thanks for calling!" Thumbs way, way, way up.

Maybe the worst is Panasonic. I called their 800 number today, and the voice picks up and says something like "hi, I'm your automated assistant. I understand natural language, so just tell me what you want". Oh, right. This machine is going to understand when I say "I have some questions about cantilever mounting brackets for plasma TVs, and availability through corporate partnership agreements." So I try "speak to a person." The worst part about this system is that when you tell it something it doesn't understand, it doesn't say so. It just sits in silence. So I'm left talking to this machine, trying to hit a keyword. "Speak to a person." "Talk to your supervisor." "Product information." "Questions." Finally I give up and say "Buy a TV." Boy, it recognized that one fast, and admittedly got me to the right person. Thumbs way down.

My favorite from a usability perspective is USBank's. Their system understands speech fairly well, but it does two things that make it very user-friendly. One, it tells you what your options are. "Which account would you like? Say 'checking' or 'savings'." Two, it lets you use numbers instead if you'd like. "Say or enter your account number." This system is great; easy to use, accurate, and quick. And it acknowledges when you've said something it doesn't understand. After three failures, it kicks you off to a person, which is often what you want anyways. Thumbs way up.

Finally, my personal favorite from a technical perspective is Microsoft's. I haven't used it much, but one of the options is "if you know the name of the person you're trying to reach, say it". So you say (fake name) "Mahadevan Srinivasan", and in half a second it says "did you want Mahadevan Srinivasan?" When you say yes, it calls that person. Amazing. I have no idea how this would be done, and it's fascinating that it's so fast and so accurate. Better still, if you're after someone named Charles, you can say Charles, Charlie, or Chuck, and it knows what you mean. What a project that must have been. Thumbs up.

I understand why these systems exist, and I guess there are a lot of things they can do that eliminate the need for human help; for instance, paying a bill or checking account balances. But with everything automatable rapidly moving online, often the only reason anyone would make a call is to speak with a person. Of course, that's exactly what these systems are trying to prevent, so they make it difficult or impossible to do so. Frustrating as they are, I'm finding that they're often not worth the effort; five minutes on a website and a quick email can accomplish the same thing in some cases. Maybe they just need to be upgraded.

December 14, 2005 - And now, videogames

Since I'm still working on my latest acquisition and I'd rather not write anything about it until it's done, I figured I'd do a little video-game compilation entry here. This will be heavily biased towards Nintendo-franchised games, since those have been the majority of the systems I've had. If you don't like old RPGs or videogames in general, skip this entire entry. Here we go with a couple random 'best-of's from the console RPG genre:

• Best controls: Earthbound, SNES. It's hard to imagine playing a game with a control pad instead of an analog stick now, but Earthbound had an awesome control scheme anyways. It was just so convenient. Most games have the "action" button as the controller's primary button - A on the NES, X on the Playstation, etc. Not Earthbound, though. Anything you wanted to do - talk to someone, investigate an object, open a present, read a sign - you could do with the L button. This was incredibly convenient for mapping dungeons or laying down awkwardly, as it let you play most of the game with one hand. A brilliant little touch that made the game enjoyable.
• Best story: Chrono Trigger, SNES. A completely new idea for RPGs at the time, playing in the same world but in different time periods was brilliant. It allowed for a lot of very cool puzzles and some intriguing storylines. The addition of some emotion and a lot of replay value made this a must-have game. Throw in over a dozen possible endings and a similar number of optional side-quests, and you have a winner. I spent a lot of time playing this game.
• Hardest game without a guide: Dragon Warrior II, NES. Holy cow. This game was amazingly hard if you had no help in playing through it. It was all straightforward until you got the ship (complex dungeons notwithstanding of course), but from there it was all open-ended. Go find five crests. Go do a bunch of stuff that one person in one town vaguely makes reference to. Go through these three huge dungeons that have dozens of dead-ends and make you start over if you take one wrong step. Sure thing. If you made it through this one without a guide, you're far better - and more patient - than I am.
• Best music: Chrono Cross, Playstation. Now granted, I never played more than a few hours into this. But I have the music from it, and it's simply spectacular. Just the overworld music gives me goosebumps. Of course, it's not all great, but the majority of this music is not "just background noise" -- you could easily make multiple CDs and have this be your primary listening for a while.
• Best experience system: Quest 64, N64. Despite its brilliant name, Quest 64 was actually a pretty good game. And one of its shining spots was its experience system. Want to be able to run faster and move farther? Walk around more. Want to be better at magic? Cast more of it. Want to have more hit points? Take more damage. And the status screen gave you a clear readout of what your stats were and how close you were to moving up in them. It gave you a constant feel of accomplishment, and it really saved an otherwise average game.
• Best everything: Final Fantasy III, SNES. Simply the best role-player ever. Very compelling story, great battle system, a brilliant way of learning magic, well-defined and surprisingly real characters, good challenge, and a bunch of side quests, all combined into over sixty hours of gameplay, make FF3 my personal Best Game Ever™. And the twenty-plus-minute ending sequence is hair-raisingly good as well. All around, just awesome.
• Most overrated: Final Fantasy VII, Playstation. Everyone and their brother thinks this is the greatest game of all time. I strongly disagree. It had its moments, and the idea of Materia as a magic source is cool, but ... I just didn't think it was that great. I'd rank it as the lowest of the Final Fantasy games that I've played (I, III, VII, VIII, IX, X, and X-2, for reference).
• Best old-school game: Final Fantasy, NES. I wasted a huge portion of my childhood playing this game. I think I've played through it at least ten times, and it just never gets old. Sure, there's not much of a story. The graphics aren't anything to write home about, and the music is sub-par. But wow, what a great RPG experience. Almost every stage of the game is just plain fun to play through. And now that they have it for Playstation and include an easier game mode, there's no reason for you to not be playing this game.
• Best multiplayer game: Secret of Mana, SNES. Find another RPG that you can play with three people. Go on, try. Secret of Mana is great fun, involving real-time combat and a cool weapon-upgrade system. Add two of your friends into the mix and you have an absolute blast. Nothing terribly creative here, just a fun experience.
• Best magic system: Secret of Evermore, SNES. Aside from the part where its gameplay is almost exactly like Secret of Mana's, Evermore is pretty cool. Its best feature is its "magic" system, which, instead of using magic points, uses alchemy, allowing you to combine ingredients to unleash spells. Naturally, the spells get more powerful the more you use them, which helps a lot with the difficulty of the game. A good part of the gameplay is finding ingredients for your alchemy skills; matter of fact, you'll spend nearly every moment you're not fighting with your finger on the shoulder buttons, having your dog sniff out ingredients for you. Very unique.
• Best silly game: Super Mario RPG, SNES. I love a game that doesn't take itself so seriously. Super Mario RPG boasts bright, cartoonish graphics, some amusing dialogue, and a whimsical feeling throughout the game. It's an awesome change from the standard "this suspiciously Earth-like world is in trouble" game that tries to be reality and fantasy at the same time -- this is pure fantasy and good clean fun.
• Best game for the career micromanager: Final Fantasy Tactics, Playstation. Simply put, you control everything. Every aspect of your characters, their skills, magic, attacks, jobs, down to the direction they face when their turn is over. If you're into hour-long battles and even longer spent tweaking status screens, this is your game. Don't get me wrong, it's a great game, but it takes some serious commitment.
• Game that makes you want to drive a railroad spike through your skull: Final Fantasy X-2, PS2. I simply can't play it anymore. The three main characters are teenage girls, which wouldn't be bad until they start talking and sound like they're five. I'm only a few hours into it, and already they've said the phrase "Oh poopie" not once, but twice. And the snide little remarks they deliver in battle get old real fast. Oh, and the gameplay sucks too: I've managed to get irreversibly stuck once and had to reload my game, something that should never happen. Finishing off the list, the battle system is atrocious, having moved from FFX's thoughtful turn-based system that gave you wonderful control to some crappy button-mashing extravaganza where all the status indicators and lettering is so dark and stylized that you can't tell what's going on. Eventually I'm sure this game will make a post of its own.

December 25, 2005 - A brief update

So maybe you're wondering where I've been for some time now. Or more likely, maybe you forgot all about me in the time since my last update. Either way, I suppose I should explain this, yes? And while I'm at it, I'll even explain in advance why I won't be updating for awhile. How's that for being on the ball, hm?
As we all know, the holiday season can be a somewhat busy time. As much as I'd like to use this as an excude, I'm afraid I can't, other than some last-minute running around and online orders. But along with the holiday season comes gatherings of family, and since my folks have made the journey out here to Seattle for ten days, the least I can do is spend some time with them and put off updating this for a while. Since they'll be leaving just before new year's, you might think you'll get another update shortly thereafter. But once again, you'd be wrong, because on January 2nd, I leave to go skiing in Colorado! That should be a fun and exciting six days, and barring travel nightmares or hardcore ski wipeouts, I should be back and ready to go again about January the ninth. Huzzah.
So there you have that. What else has been going on in the meantime, minus the parents visiting? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I work, I sleep, I play video games, I watch football. That's it. Now I remember why I started doing posts with actual substance.
Merry Christmas to everyone!