Asperger’s as a user interface problem

Blue Screen of Death = Crappy User Interface

I hate it when computer software wastes my time!  Last week I was working on some research using a SUSE Linux server when suddenly everything I typed was in some foreign character set and the writing was oriented right-to-left instead of the usual left-to-right.  None of my keyboard commands worked and I wasn’t able to get back to my native keyboard or character set.  Eventually I rebuilt the server from scratch which cost me most of a day’s work.

So do I hate SUSE Linux?  Hell no, I think it’s great!  I use it all the time and I can’t imagine how I’d get along without it.  It just has a crappy user interface.  So what is this leading up to?  I think that people with Asperger’s Enhancement (or Asperger’s Syndrome if you were to look it up in the DSM-IV) are great too.  We just have a crappy user interface.  I’ll give you an example.

Yesterday my wife asked if I’d seen the weather report for the day.  In fact, I had because I have weather apps on my phone, tablet and all the PCs just for this reason.  I proceeded to tell her the highs and lows expected for the next five days, the chance of rain, where the frontal boundaries were, their expected vectors and who would be getting snow.  After a moment she took a deep breath and said “so do I need a sweater or not?”

Similar issue at the toy store.  I was there to return a “Pop the Pig” game.  In this game you feed plastic hamburgers to a toy pig and then push down on his head to simulate chewing.  The head pumping inflates a bladder in his stomach which grows until the pig’s belt busts open and he throws his hands wide.  Whoever’s turn it is when this happens loses.  This is the exchange I had with the Customer Service clerk.

“I need to return this Pop the Pig game.”

“Is there anything wrong with it?”

“Yes.  It perpetuates negative stereotypes about obesity while simultaneously promoting the very behaviors which cause that condition.”

After a moment he took a deep breath and said “is it working as designed?”

“No, the tummy doesn’t inflate.”

The thing is that to me these were perfectly reasonable responses.  My wife is always cold in the theater and should bring a sweater for that regardless.  So if she’s asking about the weather as we are getting ready to go there, she obviously wants to know about the national weather, right?  Wrong.  She’s worried about how cold the car is going to be and the brief exposure between the car and the conditioned spaces of our home and the mall.  She swears that this would have been intuitively obvious to most people and experience tells me to believe her.  She’s usually right about these kinds of things.

Same thing with the toy store.  I’d spent the day pondering how awful the game concept is so when the guy asked whether there is anything wrong with it I expressed my feelings on the subject.  Had he bothered to ask what he really wanted to know – is it broken – I would have provided the answer he was looking for.

So for you NTs (neuro-typicals) out there with an Aspie in your life perhaps it would be helpful to think of us as having a crappy user interface.  Like some of your favorite software or web sites, we have many useful and redeeming qualities.  Once you get used to the crappy user interface you won’t mind it so much, nor will you be able to imagine life without us.  But unlike software, this goes both ways.  We are just as aware of our interactions with you and to us it is you who have a crappy user interface.  You use body language we don’t see and cannot parse, and when you do talk you often speak in riddles and metaphors.  We try to come to terms with that as best we can and once we do, we can’t imagine life without you.

Each of us is unique and irreplaceable.  If we dismiss each other out of hand because it is harder than communicating with others like ourselves, because it is convenient, then we are both diminished.  Let’s agree to look past the UI and focus instead on the qualities of the person behind it. It is there that we will bond over common ground.  After that our communication difficulties, once a source of pain, will blossom into a source of inspiration and laughter.  We will love one another because of our differences rather than in spite of them.

The ePinions days

Some of my older writing, including the infamous Vacuum Man posts, is still available at ePinions:

• Confessions of a Computer Geek – Loosely based on a true story.
• A Different Take On The Picky Eater – What do you do when your small diabetic child won’t eat?
• Happy Birthday, Honey. I love you! – Love is a verb.  It is something you do.
• Vacuum Man Saves Christmas – It’s his job, after all.
• Official vacuum of the Superhero’s League? – Vacuum Man gets a new power source.
• bacon! Bacon! BACON! BAAAACONNNNN! – Advertising that assumes we are all idiots rubs me the wrong way.
  

Those were fun to write and all well received but the site changed to focus more narrowly on products and I drifted away.  These days I can be found over at the Writer’s Digest forums.

I Know I’m Supposed to Keep This a Secret, But …

The folks at Writer’s Digest have a fun writing prompt challenge each week to help people build their writing muscles.  They give you a prompt and you reply with ~500 words. Sounded like fun so I whipped up an entry.  Thanks to Lori at Word Balloon for giving me the idea to repost my own entries here.

The challenge that was in progress the first day I stopped by was:

The plane lifted off the runway and into the air. The person next to you turns and quietly whispers in your ear, “I know I’m supposed to keep this a secret, but I absolutely must tell someone.”

Man, I’ve been on a roll all day long. The old humor gene kicked into overdrive. Or maybe the stress of running late all day made me funny, I don’t know. But it started first thing this morning when I was checking out and dropping off my luggage. I had the bellman in stitches!

Then at the keynote speech I had written a joke to open. I didn’t even think it was all that funny but the crowd howled! Even during the serious part of the presentation they kept on chuckling. Almost inappropriately. Threw me off my timing and then I was late for the breakout session I was teaching. But even flustered and late, that crowd loved me too!

When I picked up my bags, the bellman from before brought out some of his friends and they were all laughing hysterically by the time I left. My taxi driver said I was the funniest customer he’d had in months and refused a tip! Can you believe that? What taxi driver refuses tips? Said he didn’t have the heart. Like I said, man I am on a roll today!

My meeting was across town and I ended up late for that too. I thought that would throw me off my game but I had my clients rolling in the aisles. This meeting wasn’t supposed to be funny, there was a sale at stake. A sale I lost. Still, I ROCKED today! So what if I lost the sale? I may just give up my day job and go on tour.

At the airport the gate agent was almost in tears. When I asked if any upgrades were available she’d said “Oh we’ll make room for you in the first row, right behind the cockpit. And I’ll tell the pilot to stop by and say hello.” It’s true, you really do catch more flies with honey. Free first class upgrade just for being funny!

Now, I’m settled into my seat and can finally relax for the first time today. I hope they’ve got food because I haven’t stopped to eat or even take a leak since I woke up twelve hours ago. I’m starving and as soon as they close the door, I’m gonna hit the head. But until then, why is this lady next to me not amused? Okay, with the gray hair tucked under that pillbox hat she looks a bit too refined and proper to be my usual audience. But not only isn’t she laughing at my jokes, she won’t even look me in the eye.

The door closes and I decide to stop trying to win her over and go take that long awaited restroom break. I’m in the window seat so I press my butt against the bulkhead and slide past facing, but not crowding her. Right when we’re face to face – or in her case face to crotch – she stops me with a wave.

“Young man?” she asks in a confidential whisper.

I bend over to her. “Yes?” I whisper back.

“I know I’m supposed to keep this a secret, but I absolutely must tell someone and it might as well be you. Your fly is open.”

“What?”

“Aren’t you a little old for Barney the Dinosaur?”

Dear SiriusXM

Dear Joe Zarella of  SiriusXM,

Why does SiriusXM continue to pester me?  The last few times your company called or mailed me I explained, very nicely, that I don’t want the service and to please put us on your Do Not Call list and remove us from the mailing list.  After expressing these wishes do you siriusly think that another ten calls or pieces of mail will inspire goodwill and loyalty from me?

Just so that we are clear, the reasons I gave to the customer service rep were as follows:

1. We just aren’t in the car enough to make it worth subscribing.  We put maybe 500 miles a month on the car.  That’s 10 hours of in-car time.  If we suddenly change our driving habits, I’ll call, assuming that you haven’t totally alienated me by then.
2. I avoid subscriptions that automatically renew on a contract basis.  Send me a reminder sure.  But if I let the subscription run out, I want it to stop. I want a default opt-out rather than a default opt-in.  You do not provide that option so I decline to subscribe.

If we could have parted amicably, I would have ended my association with SiriusXM with a good impression of the company and possibly returned someday as a paying customer.  But you don’t give up.  You hang on like a bulldog.  You intrude on my life like a stalker.  Perhaps if I explain why NOBODY should buy a SiriusXM subscription you will jump on the clue train.

Consider Netflix.  My TV has Netflix so I got a streaming account.  Netflix knows that no matter how many devices I have, I can only watch one stream at a time.  They don’t care how many devices I register, only that I don’t attempt to start up multiple simultaneous streams.  So when we bought a new TV for the bedroom and it had Netflix, my subscription instantly became more valuable.  When I discovered I could stream Netflix in the hotel and feed it through the HDMI cable to the TV there, the subscription became yet more valuable.  For every new device I add, the value of the subscription grows.  Since practically any consumer electronic device that has Ethernet or Wi-Fi now comes with Netflix, I’m a die-hard, loyal subscriber.   As a result, we eventually upgraded the subscription to have multiple streams and then introduced our parents and kids to the service.  Because Netflix knows know that more devices equals more value, they modeled their service plan on that and subsequently we referred several new subscribers.

Now consider SiriusXM.  I can still listen to only one stream at a time but SiriusXM wants to charge me for every device.  Listen in the car? Ka-ching!  Listen online?  Ka-ching!  Get a portable device? Ka-Ching!  Buy a second car?  Ka-Ching!  Each device I acquire diminishes the value of the service.  If I had a SiriusXM subscription in every device where I currently have a Netflix subscription, I’d go broke.  The possibility of someday acquiring another SiriusXM device is actually a deterring factor against getting a subscription today.  So rather than sign up for SiriusXM, become a loyal customer and send referrals their way, I skip the subscription altogether and instead stream, all the music I want over my Android phone.

Then there’s the hostile contract terms.  As I said, I don’t want to auto-renew.  My payment is my indication that I want to renew.  And your having once had a business relationship with me doesn’t make it OK not to honor my requests to stop contacting me.  If anything this alienates me and makes it even less likely I’ll relent and fork over my hard-earned money.

So please, Joe Zarella of SiriusXM, when your customer says there are irreconcilable differences jump on the clue train.  Either address the issues or remove that name from your database.  If you want to contact me to let me know about a new flat-rate subscription across all my devices, I’m all ears.  Other than that, let’s agree to disagree and leave each other alone.  Siriusly.

Awkward silences

Ever been talking to someone, might even be a very close friend, and all of a sudden there’s a pause in the conversation and it’s awkward?  There’s this long uncomfortable silence and you are dying to fill it.  You just have to say something but after a certain point anything you say will sound strained so you don’t say anything at all.  You just wait for some external sound or event to break the spell before you die.  Ever have that happen?  I have and it always makes me feel socially inadequate.

This to me is why blogs are such a great invention.  When you create a new one, there’s that empty “About” page and no posts.  It’s a big uncomfortable silence that you can do anything with and long to fill, but after staring at it for a bit you realize anything you write will sound strained.  You just wait for some reader to come along and post a comment to break the spell before you die.  Except there’s nothing to comment on.  Yes, thanks to blogs, you can now feel socially inadequate even when you are alone.

There, now I’ve filled the awkward silence.  Does this post sound strained?