I took another look at Moviefone recently because I heard they’ll be rolling out a new phone version soon. I wanted to document my specific gripes by way of comparison when that happens. I visited the website and saw that the online version of moviefone went through an overhaul this summer too and there is a blog about it on the site, but nothing positive is said there either. I wonder if they’ll have a similar feedback loop when they launch the new phone version. Speaking of which, I had the hardest time even getting a valid number to call moviefone. The “777FILM” is plastered everywhere, but no version of that phone number worked for me with any area code or toll free number. I finally found a St. Louis based number of 314 444 3456 by calling 5551212, but even for that I had to be handed off to a supervisor. What’s up with that? Also, my blackberry has a semi qwerty keyboard, which means I can’t dial things like 777FILM unless I see a traditional keypad to find the correct corresponding numbers. For this I used SJPhone, but it didn’t help. Anyway, here are my quick comments after a half hour chatting with moviefone.
1. Persona. The system never shuts up and with that exaggerated voice, it gets annoying. I understand it’s moviefone’s signature voice, but it can be toned down after the initial greeting. Look into Grice’s maxims or refer to Melanie Polkosky’s extensive research where she found that having an upbeat voice is a positive influence on user experience…up to a point.
2. Timeouts. System hangs up after preset number of noinputs, with no reason given as to why or an option for stopping that from happening, like press * or we will end this call. Very bad practice. Also, the rude and technical sounding error messages come up too quickly.
3. Menu Structure. After initially selecting a movie, I wanted to choose a different movie, but at this point the system will only offer doing it by name, not by browsing again as was listed in the main menu until you listen to the whole timeout error cycle again several (way too many, causing confusion, frustration and hangups) times. Need to add ability to browse at this point too. Also, If the caller enters a movie name and the system chooses a movie but that’s not what the caller wanted, there is nothing for the caller to do. It says “to hear showtimes, press 1 or to go back, press *, but * goes to genre selection instead of simply letting them select another movie by title or browsing until you listen to the whole timeout error cycle again etc. etc. In addition, Offering to find movie by genre is a good one but buried and callers may never even be aware of it. It should come in the main menu, but only after the main menu is pared down and classified better. Main menu would probably be “enter the name, enter the theatre, search by genre, or other information.”
4. Orientation. When you’ve exceeded the split second time limit here (even if the movie selected by the system is the one intended by the caller), the error message should be contextual saying” to hear showtimes for <moviename>…” because it is now too far removed for the person to know what movie they’re talking about, especially if it wasn’t the one they intended.
New features:
1. Need a pause if not just to stop the system from constantly talking so you can’t think, but so people have a chance to grab pen and paper or write something down or ask a question of someone else with them about movies and times or remember the name of a movie.
2. New feature: Offer to download information to their phone, listings by theatre, by movie title in their area or ticket buying info.
–Simonie
