Have you ever been on the receiving end of a thoughtless interactor? Have you ever been approached by a person whose thoughtlessness in their communication to you created irritation? An interaction that simply bamboozled you in its obliviousness and immediately annoyed you? Someone who just made you shake your head in disgust and ask:
- Why are you emailing, texting, or calling me at inopportune moments?
- Why are you sending massively verbose documents and requiring feedback via email?
- Why do you think that I don’t want to interact with you?
As a thoughtless interactor could it be that you are on the receiving end of these negative client/customer* situations?
- Because you haven’t taken the time to get to know me enough to gauge how I will take your message. Stop charging ahead with what you want from me before you understand me.
- Because you keep making more work for me. Stop adding things to my to-do list and make it easy for me to talk to you.
- Because I don’t like your thoughtless approach to getting what you want from me. Stop and think before you create an interaction.
Basic human interaction design principles centre around lessening the ‘cognitive burden’ on the client or customer of the interaction. Many daily interactions could be better with a small dose of human interaction common sense!
Basic interaction design principles would encourage us all to:
- Understand the client/customer & their world
- Know your role in interacting with the client / customer
- Craft your messaging, medium, & response required from the client / customer to fit or exceed their expectations
- Follow through & follow-up to create follower-ship (the making of advocates)
- Be fun, different, & a breath of fresh air (apply the power of positivity)
Let’s all be thoughtful interactors! Huzzah!
Rant over.
*Remember that everyone you interact with is your client or customer in one way or another. When in doubt follow the chain of customer-ship.
Thinking about the future & ethnography 
I couldn’t agree more … I could do a whole post on some of the cringeworthy emails I get!
Do it! And share it with us!
Will do!
Nice post. I often find myself being drawn into the trap of assuming that everyone thinks and interacts in the same way! My experience luckily has shown this not to be the case. There is no better way of “pissing people off” than sending them an e-mail asking for support or reaction having never met or interacted with them in any other way prior to the request!
I find that, if I am under pressure to obtain a reply/comment/reaction then the least I can of is call the addressee on the phone, introduce myself and then enquire 1. Is it okay to ask the persons advice etc
2. How best should I do this
It may seem like it will take longer but experience has shown that the other approach usually ends up with no reaction at all!