Bad Design - Capture User Experience

Imagine one day you wake up to find the mobile phone which you have left it to charge overnight is still uncharged, because of the loose charging cable. In other words, the battery logo is red and you have to rush off in the morning to attend a 9am lecture. You have no time for it to re-charge. Will you feel frustrated or feel just like suing the mobile company (that is if you have the money and time to spare)?

The above situation has happened to me and my fellow friends who are loyal Sony Ericsson mobile users (I hope Sony Ericsson will not sue me for this, because I am really stating the fact!). The older Sony Ericsson phones, like the models K320i, J300i, K508i, K300i, K700i and many more are using this tilting charger, which you have to remove by tilting the plug upwards. Unlike the Nokia chargers, which is round and works just like any earphones plug for walkmans and ipods. The Sony Ericsson charger connector will come loose when you move the phone in an upward direction while charging. After several usages the connection will be seasoned and comes loose even much easily.

Personally I was frustrated every time the same thing happened. The most frustrating thing is when I have actually made sure that the charger was attached properly before I went to sleep, but only to realize that the charger came loose in the middle of the night because of whatever reasons. After some discussions with my brother, also a Sony Ericsson mobile user, we concluded that partly it is the gravitational pull and maybe the wind or air pressure (not going into any physics discussion). We try to place the mobile phone on a thick book or on a table so that the cable is connected such that is in- line with the charger connector port. However, this is still a no guarantee that it will be safely charge the next morning (maybe 85% higher chance).

Hoping that Sony Ericsson will come out with a better designed charger, I investigate further with two friends who have bought the newer ‘W’ series. This time the charger is bigger than the ‘K’ series but the same problem still occurs. Another insight that I got is that when the charger connector is loosed, the ear piece will also be loosely connected because they share the same connecting port. The ‘K’ series have a separate connecting port for the ear piece and charger. Many of the Sony Ericsson mobile users are switching to Nokia or Samsung. They still think that the conventional charger used by Nokia is the best.

Reflections

One biggest problem that Sony Ericsson has failed to identify is that the tilting technology of the charger is the main cause of the bad connecting problem. Another reason that causes the charger to become loose is because most users failed to use the technology the way it is intended by the designer. Many failed to realize that they have to tilt to remove the charger, they just pull it out. The pulling motion will damage the connecting point. Personally I only realized it after charging my phone for the third time; I read it from the menu that comes with the phone while reviewing some special functions of the phone. How many users read the product menu? Not many I assumed. Sony Ericsson can either focus their advertising efforts to educate the users about the tilting technology or change the charger design to one similar to Nokia.