Comedy captured the moment as I suggested a destination to the GPS app. "Navigate to such and such place." A five-second pause. "Something went wrong." I tried again, twice. "You will arrive in three hours." Smirking, I said, "Hehe, yeah, right!" I've been through this rodeo. "No way it's three hours, more like four and a half!" An unneeded reply chimed, "Sorry, I don't understand."

We hurried above the speed limit, got fast food, and hit sporadic traffic. We arrived in four and a half hours.

For me, these experiences are typical, having not improved in years.

Apps Prefer Accuracy

Being involved in software for a time, I've had the pleasure to work with brilliant technological and product people. And yeah, every team skewed toward the happy path, preferring accurate over accommodating.

Accuracy is demanded in our culture, driven by two points: the relentless pressure to release and moving on to the next thing. Failing gracefully is not on the incentive list.

Apps that are accurate perform discretely, abandoning the user experience during errors, which drives odd customer behaviors. Consumers utilize unconventionality to get what they need, such as unduly forced closing apps, clearing cache, reinstalling, tapping numerous times to get the reward, or a secret action to perform the transaction, fiddling with settings to achieve it. Or, in my case, knowing how to deal with a familiar skew of results.

These behaviors have become common, a badge of honor. For customer service, there is a growing backlog of complaints, low user ratings, and rising churn.

The result is a consumer that acquires pessimism, frustration, the burden of remembering unique tricks, being overcome with doubt, and, in time, abandoning the product for something else.

Nonetheless, many experiences suck, and there is room to improve.

Prefer Accommodating Over Accurate

If we reverse our thinking, preferring accommodating over accurate, it will positively change user experiences. For instance, choose to provide upfront rich information, being realistic of an Internet connection, and give the consumer confidence when the transaction has yet to go through but will as soon as possible. Mercilessly scrutinize the error paths, rooting out accuracy, and provide accommodation instead.

Yes, accommodating experiences costs development time and incurs intense technical complexity to achieve. There isn't an easy way around managing statefulness, and technological inventions are waiting to be found to blunt the digital trauma. But it's worth an inquiry within your team, especially if the app is in production and the rush to launch has easied.

I've seen it many times. When racing to get a product out, accommodating actions get cut out of scope as teams within repeat in chorus, "Nice to have!" Ask the question, "Why so?" If we don't ask, few experiences will become smooth, and cooperation in intra-app experiences will remain unexplored.

Fluid, accommodating interactions do not have to be something of science fiction in software. It is worth taking steps to improve the experience starting now.