I think it's pretty clean and it's normally obvious what's happened/what you need to do. They follow a lot of the suggestions in the OP, for instance the who/what/where/when is obvious and at the top. Payment is another form, as above, and the options for getting your item are on the back. There's enough room for large entry boxes and nice whitespace/branding.
It seems like that the USPS form is trying to handle every single possibility in one form which leads to a mess.
I hate getting these, if I'm waiting for a package it means I have to wait another day and pick it up myself, if it's addressed to another family member and they're not around, the package is basically returned as they refuse to hand it over at the post office (understandable but inconvenient).
But generally the post is fascinating, I order lots of stuff from China and while it does take a few weeks to arrive, nothing has been lost/stolen yet, I can track packages half-way around the world and it costs me almost nothing. Logistically it's amazing.
I think postal services in all of Europe are heavily improving as a result of all the internet orders. They started rolling out pin locked boxes here which you can install for a fee at home and they put the package in there and then throw the one-time use pin into your mailbox. I think this sort of stuff has potential.
Worth pointing out for the people complaining about lack of space that IME the postman writes at most a surname in the Name field and an abbreviated address (e.g. "42 Fake Street"), ignoring the postcode altogether - so the Address field is effectively double-height or so.
Will probably get some downvotes for the raw criticism, but your redesign is a regression in usability for both the carrier and the recipient:
In the actual, the fields where the poor guy/girl actually has to write are large spacious to allow the delivery person to write quickly (and sloppily).
Also, notice how Final Notice is bigger than the rest of the text? That's because it's important. This is one example of confusing typographical priority.
Totally agree. I found it just as confusing as the original yet I can see that it’s going to be even harder for someone to quickly fill out when they don’t have a proper desk/writing surface to fill this out on.
That was my immediate reaction. Carrier fills this out often without a good surface to write on. The space to write is appropriate for a designer who has perfect tiny handwriting.
I actually agree with what you've written, but I downvoted you because I hate reading comments that say things like "I will probably get some downvotes". If you think you're going to be downvoted, ask yourself why and consider rewriting it in such a way that people won't downvote you.
For example, in your comment here, to make it less downvotable you could say:
* What do you like about the redesign? There must be something positive you can say, even if it's just "it definitely looks more visually appealing" or "I understand that you were trying to improve usability by putting more information on the same side".
* Do you have any evidence that supports your counter-argument? If not, you're just two people with opinions, and since you're not a well-known authority on usability it's just noise.
* What would you suggest doing to fix the problems you've said here while also fixing the problems that the OP identified? Or do you not agree that those problems are really problems?
> If you think you're going to be downvoted, ask yourself why and consider rewriting it in such a way that people won't downvote you.
I don't think intentionally trying to write in a way that doesn't provoke downvotes is helpful to a healthy discussion.
The post in question was direct, that's it.
While it is fair to suggest that the parent post highlight the positives, I don't think it is necessary always. Especially in light of 45 hearts on the medium post in support of the word. I'd say your last two points were addressed in the post as well...
I agree with you that avoiding downvotes doesn't promote healthy discussion. However, I take exception to someone pre-empting downvotes - to me personally, it comes across as a challenge to disagree and I don't think that's helpful to a healthy discussion either.
If someone writes something without thinking about whether they'll be upvoted or downvoted, then that's great, even if I disagree with them. But writing with the explicit assumption that you'll be downvoted suggests that you're being contrarian.
Fact of the matter is that websites like this breed hivemind behavior. The behavior may only be on a per thread basis, but when people see a lot of upvotes and positive praise, the natural response to a challenging post seems to be, "You're just going against the grain. Stop being an asshole." This is also true for comments that get downvoted.
As an example, I had a post where I said the concept of payday loans is not a bad one while simultaneously denouncing the predatory practices that payday loan companies employ. You borrow a small money for 15 days, pay back the loan plus 20% ($200 + 20% in fees and interest = $240), and call it a day. All it took was one post to say that I'm siding with the payday loan companies. The highest I saw was +3. It's currently sitting at -7. I think prefacing the post would have helped the vote count.
Prefacing a post acknowledging possible downvotes is a forewarning to readers that the poster is going against the grain - contrarian if you will - but not in way that's purely devil's advocate. It says to me, "I know what I'm about to say disagrees with you guys, but please hear me out." It's probably not the most eloquent way to express that idea. I have never seen it as a challenge though.
I applaud the effort, but there are a few points about usability that you may have overlooked.
1. Entry spaces are now much smaller and requires smaller writing, particularly for names and addresses. I actually doubt that many addresses will fit.
2. By putting the checkboxes closer together, it makes it harder to tell them apart. The delivery person now has to be more precise when making marks, leading to reduced efficiency.
3. One of the biggest points is that everything the delivery person fills out should be on the same side, so they don't have to flip the sheet over, especially when they may be carrying a package in one arm.
The main issue I have is that there is too much space devoted to telling you stuff you already know. You know the destination address because thats why you have the card. More importantly there isn't a space for a tracking number. (I assume the USPS has some sort of tracking.) surely that's the most important thing?
Dear _______ We missed you,
Your package __________ was:
[]too big []needs payment
[]needs signing for
and is now back at the post office.
[] I will try again AM/PM
[] The package will need collecting
Date_______ Time_______
Notes:
_______________________
_______________________
On the back collection information.
Much more simple, readable and compact. The flow of information is from top to bottom, most important who its addressed to, next why its not been delivered, then when its being delivered (if at all) Date and time of attempt, extra notes.
There are a couple of cases where the destination address is valuable to ensure that the package is delivered to the right person.
1. Particularly in apartment buildings where postboxes are next to each other, the slip may not be placed in the correct box. If I receive a slip that's intended for a neighbor, it would be helpful to know the correct address (since I probably don't know all my neighbors' names)
2. If the address is my address but not my name, then it's either a mistake by the sender or it's intended for a former resident, and I can inform USPS. If the address wasn't on the slip, I would just assume it was meant for a neighbor.
Note on the new one the right side: You can go online and directly instruct the post office on how to proceed (Hold it for me, try a second delivery, forward...)
Additionally I like their email service: Get a mail as soon as somebody sends any package to your address. Get a second mail as soon as it is delivered.
I tried to find images of the Austrian one but I have not missed a package in a long time since they started sending out push notifications and put packages into wall mounted boxes. Looks very similar though.
This is a thoughtful redesign. Although the organization of the redesigned form is stronger in some aspects and weaker in others (stronger in terms of how much sense it makes and the behavior flow, weaker in its visual organization), it's still a great improvement.
The key issue is that it seems busy. I think the form could sacrifice the increased font size (and generally standardize the font size and the font styles) and instead add more lines and shading that would help separate the different parts of the form. I think using lines, like the original document, is a stronger and clearer organizing tactic than font size. For example, more obvious headers (all caps? white on black background?) would help people break down the steps of what needs to be done.
But yeah, this is definitely an improvement, particularly on the UX side. Nice breakdown.
Agreed. The original slips are very confusing. Not because they're actually confusing, but because visually the firm is very busy and has all these sub points and bullets. It more so flusters the mind.
The redesign is much cleaner and easier to look at. Therefore being easier to process. This is something that is much less intimidating to look at and I would have no problem filling out while the original is daunting and seems like more of a chore, if not torture.
Thanks for your comment, I went through the entire article asking "Where's the redesign?", and had to come to the comments hoping somebody's linked to it in some way.
I really don't think that the OP's redesign does anything new, it just seems to be "I removed some stuff that's there for some very specific edge cases and wrote a Medium post about it".
Maybe it's because I'm used to Royal Mail's parcel slips, I don't know. But it looks just as confusing as before.
This is why the world thinks we need designers... In this case I think a designer is needed, the layout falls short in conventional layout terms - grids, use of white space, things just lining up properly.
Give it another go, take on board what people have said here about it looking to busy and get the form to have function and look good!
You can do the bit that some manager would hand over to a designer, that designer not necessarily as good as you at understanding the task, or the 'how it works' bit of design.
I do think I'm going to give it another try, thanks. And agreed--I have more of a background in UX, but this was my first go at paper layout design. There is definitely much to improve.
What is it with the US government and having indecipherable forms?
I've had a few dealings with CBP, IRS and such, and every time I try to read and comprehend a US government form, I notice that they all seem to be designed to have as little spacing as possible. They're very fond of using lines as dividers between fields (rather than around just the response box) and then putting them as close together as possible so it becomes a confusing, uneven mess. Sure, the form takes up fewer pages, but it's ugly as heck.
In Australia, OTOH, while the questions on one's paperwork are still just as tricky, at least it's usually clear which question you're answering and how the form is meant to flow.
The author has the same post office as me. I've never even managed to get something redelivered even when filling this form out, or filling it out online. That seems to be the bigger problem.
I would just make the form say, "You can get this thing at the post office tomorrow. If you don't pick it up by XXX, it will be crushed into a cube."
Great post! I dream of a day when this will be a pull request on a government repo so that USPS could more easily adopt it. Imagine average citizens working together to solve problems that they face every day....
The reason why the USPS forms look so ancient is because they are so ancient.
Their budget has been destroyed over the years by Congress so there is no money for things like redesigning forms and reprinting them.
I've watched my main post office slowing implode on itself because all of USPS income is going back into funding future imaginary employee retirement funds (due to congressional law designed to destroy them).
Congress passed a law in 2006 stating that the USPS must pre-fund benefits. It didn't allocate any money for it, though.
It's the equivalent of your credit card company saying "we think we'll end up lending you $1m over the lifetime of the card, so can you pay us back all of that up front?"
I still haven't figured out why this is so controversial. You have a service that seems to be in inevitable decline. Instead of pretending that future revenue will always be enough to cover pension requirements, why not take steps now to prevent problems in the future? Maybe the disconnect is that some people are predicting a resurgence in letter writing?
As with defunding the IRS, the intent likely being to ruin them financially so they can point to the USPS and say "See? Government can't run anything properly! Let's give the business to my friend over here..."
Actually with USPS it is more insidious than that.
Congress wants to force USPS to allow private corporations access to your mailbox and replace USPS entirely with privatized services.
Then congresspeople can use their re-legalized inside trading to invest in those private corporations ahead of time with the knowledge they are about to pass the law to make it legal.
This is a significant improvement though the form itself is still incredibly busy. I would much rather have something more tailored to my delivery than this generic thing that requires effort from everyone involved. This is a good solution for 2007 but 2015? This needs more automation.
For instance USPS should know what type of delivery it is, customer name, sender, addresses and whether it's a final notice or not. Why can't the postman / postwoman press a button in their car that prints a sticker with everything already filled in (without labels even; just a custom made sticker without all of this busy text).
Press button, slap the print out to the mailbox / house and you're done. Let the user call a number, text or go to a web site to setup the redelivery stuff.
Although automation could certainly be implemented to some extent here, note that on city routes the carrier will often use this form when not near their vehicle (flats fit in the bag). There are several options for body-worn thermal printers, but durability of the device and output might be a problem. These cards are printed on pretty heavy stock and are really very sturdy.
As far as body-worn printing of adhesive labels, I'm not aware of any product for that. Thermal print (on thermal paper, not thermal transfer printing) tends to fade very easily in sun or rain and would also be a problem.
DHL does that (in Germany at least). The delivery people have combined scanner/printer things that thermal-print on adhesive labels. So if they didn't find you and you need to pick up a package, you get a card in the mailbox with a printed slip on top of it which says where you can pick it up as well as the opening hours of that shop (which is a great improvement to before when the opening hours weren't listed).
When you give them a package (you don't have to bring it to the post office, you can give it to delivery people as well), they scan the label and print you a receipt (which also has the tracking number on it so you can track it).
The nice thing about that is that adding new features to the print-out (e.g. the opening hours mentioned before) is just a software update.
Some delivery services here also give you very accurate tracking with a delivery window that's just 15 minutes or so and you get the option to re-route the package online if you know you're not present during that time – or tell them to drop it off in a certain place (I have asked for non-fragile things to just thrown on our balcony in the first floor before; it's secure enough and I'd rather have a package instead of having to wait for redelivery or pick it up), or let them deliver to a neighbour.
All in all I think there are numerous possible improvements here and not all of them revolve around designing a better form that may be obsoleted by some of the better options.
First, we need to gather data regarding the frequency of leaving these notes. I suspect this is practically exceptional given the required costs associated with requiring a signature (only anecdotal but even more expensive purchases I've made almost never need a signature).
Once you collect data that's your baseline for the printer's reliability. It must work at a minimum that many times per delivery route (in practice it probably doesn't). There are dozens of options for small, portable printers that are relatively inexpensive. So even before you start custom designing a more reliable printer get the costs of purchasing them in bulk and pilot them in an area attached to mail carrier bags.
Fading / inking coming off would be an edge case; the vast majority of these notes are going to be basically warnings that you need to pick up your package or asking them to redeliver it and you have a very limited amount of time to do this before it gets sent back.
Packages have barcodes, have the printer scan that to instantly generate an appropriate label.
It's not the easiest thing in the world but I could put together a pilot for this inside of a week with proper USPS API access. Get into a fast iteration cycle, increase reliability of printers and prints, automate changing of ink and paper upon delivery route completion through some docking mechanism.
I almost want to just start building this thing, ha!
Because government contractors are notoriously awful at technology being that they are selected via cronyism. This would be an expensive, proprietary label system requiring special proprietary ink and labels that would likely break after being used 50 times, and require an authorized repair contractor to fix it. A relative or friend of the executive at USPS who implemented this would receive the contract and just take the money.
It would also need to interface with their daily operations "out for delivery" db which likely is also proprietary and extremely expensive to modify, and already under an existing long term licensing contract they have no intention of changing.
Disclosure: this is how it worked at Postes Canada when I once worked there. All technology was long term licensed, through crony corps I had never heard of who only seemed to exist to receive money from CPC to sell extremely expensive systems that merely passed plain text to a db.
This is how ALL technology changes happen in the government, unfortunately. I've done plenty of public contracting and a vast majority of the people involved are simply terrible mostly because when you're rewarded a contract in order to get all of the money possible you have to fill every empty seat which means a butts-in-seats mentality versus a lean or better team.
But progress isn't made when we sit there with our thumbs up our butts either. Essentially you're saying USPS can never be improved because contractors suck and because it's hard. That's unacceptable. It's hard yes but it's possible.
I got one of these sorts of things one time. It told me to go to a post office nearby to pick up a package. When I went there they didn't have my package and the following exchange occurred:
"Why did you come to this post office?"
"Because your form says to come to this post office. See right here on the slip..."
"This isn't your post office you need to go to (post office a few miles away)"
"OK, so why did you guys tell me to come here?"
"Sir if you want your package you have to go to the other post office."
"Whatever, thanks"
It's constant screw ups and interactions like this that generally cause me to avoid the USPS whenever possible.
One piece of feedback: I'd argue that it isn't important to specify the type of parcel. Recipients usually already know what type of mail they're getting, especially if the sender is identified. Good job, though! I enjoyed the writing, too.
Why does it need to be jammed into that size of paper? Making it bigger would relax the most significant design constraint. Maybe it is this size for some reason; maybe not.
My postman can't even be bothered to properly fill out the current one. How adding more questions to the thing will help that problem is unclear to me.
Part of this redesign is making it easier for the mail carrier as well:
I decided to place all these sections at the top since you want to know this information first. I made it more readable by putting them within a single Mad-Libs style human-readable sentence. This is the main section the mail carrier will need to fill out, too, so it should also make her job quicker to have all the writing in one place.
Whether it is 10 seconds or 10 minutes (clearly hyperbole), the point is that these notifications are difficult to interpret because of poor design.
As the attempted re-design and the commentary shows, this is not an easy problem. It takes some serious effort and consideration of many use-cases.
Instead of someone trying to "Steve-Jobs" a redesign, perhaps the best thing to do would be to devise a process for coming up with a new design. To do something like this "right" requires actual study with users-- not just a designer applying his/her talents.
FWIW, I think the OP's redesign is more clear, but that's just my limited viewpoint, it doesn't mean that it would be successful over all possible use-cases.
Side 1 has the relevant info time/date/what/etc
http://cdn1.alphr.com/sites/alphr/files/images/blogs/wp-cont...
Side 2 has contact information for your nearest post depot. Note that date/time is simply changed to 'hours' which saves space.
Fees to pay is actually a separate form (it's rare for most people to get this, so why waste space on form 1?):
https://www.royalmail.com/sites/default/files/fee-to-pay-10-...
I think it's pretty clean and it's normally obvious what's happened/what you need to do. They follow a lot of the suggestions in the OP, for instance the who/what/where/when is obvious and at the top. Payment is another form, as above, and the options for getting your item are on the back. There's enough room for large entry boxes and nice whitespace/branding.
It seems like that the USPS form is trying to handle every single possibility in one form which leads to a mess.