User Wish List: Reliability, Simplicity

SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA -- "I wish the computer would stop freezing," laments the small British-accented boy, cornered at New York's Grand Central Station by a camera crew seeking people with PC gripes.

He's not alone, says Robin Raskin, editor in chief of FamilyPC, during a presentation to system vendors here Wednesday at an Intel Developer Forum session on Intel and Microsoft's ongoing Ease of Use Initiative.

The video interviews, combined with an informal Web site survey, show that reliability is the number one ease-of-use wish of consumers. Second is a "yearning for simplicity," followed by a yen for better technical support, according to Raskin. Rounding out the top six are better compatibility, the capability to get more out of the PC, and easier upgrades.

And despite the industry's faster-is-better bent, not one survey participant mentioned wanting more speed, she noted.

"People are basically happy," Raskin said. "But they want things to work as advertised."

Love-Hate Relationship

After nearly 20 years of relatively mainstream computer use, the PC has grown to become "the machine we love to hate," Raskin noted. It's a wired ball and chain, and easily the least reliable of all the machines we own (although it's more flexible than most).

If vendors can improve ease of use, that relationship might improve, she said. Little things matter, like start-up. "There's 3 or 4 minutes of your day," she said.

Also on Raskin's wish list: retractable power cords, universal icons, easy maintenance schedulers, self-repairing functions, and self-diagnostics "that aren't more confusing than the problem they are solving."

It's even too hard to upgrade to a new PC, she said. People just want to get the most out of their machines without having to dedicate too much time to learning the ropes. "Life is short, how much of it do you want to give to your PC?" she added.

Intel: We're Working on It

Tangible rewards result from improving systems, panelists acknowledge.

For example, sleep modes are notoriously inconsistent. But a recent study of 3 million PCs in the San Francisco Bay Area showed that if each PC went into sleep mode for 1 hour of each workday, a $4 million savings in energy costs would result.

A good sleep mode lets you maintain an always-on connection while powering down to minimum power consumption to save money, said Stephen Whalley, after Raskin's presentation. Whalley, Intel's Ease of Use Initiative manager, outlined some of the improvements that Intel and Microsoft are pushing vendors to make in the coming year.

"We need to hide the complexity and give them what they need," he said. Easier setup, expandability (thanks to USB), and slightly improved boot times are great, but there is still more work to do, he said.

Slow boot times drive us crazy, but the situation is getting better, Whalley said, citing a Dell system that can boot in 30 seconds. He expects Windows XP will help, and says test systems are currently booting in 17 or 18 seconds.

Of course, there are many more areas in which vendors can improve the PC, he said. The best way to get that done is to get all vendors involved, and to listen to what customers are saying, he said.