Some actions become usability myths.
I’ve just seen an Iphone photo app which imitates the photographic qualities of a Polaroid cam – You know, the slightly vintaged look and the imperfect focus. Now, I don’t want to get into the nostalgic bit which is obvious or the magic of pseudo-chemical photo development. The thing I found interesting about this app is that it requires that you’ll shake your phone in order to produce the photo. In a way, that’s totally understandable, I mean, everyone knows that Polaroids are magically fun. you point, click, and a card pops out. you shake it and a photo magically appears. The best part is the shaking and seeing the photo appear.
For arguement’s sake, please ignore the fact that the last time you’ve probably seen a polaroid was a bunch of years ago. Please think about this – What if I told you that the shaking part was totally unnecessary, had no effect at all and that vigorous shaking might even hurt the developing picture? That’s absolutely true by the way, in modern Polaroid shaking has no effect. Would knowing that stop you from shaking the card till the photo appear? I hope not. Because it’s plain fun. And that’s a part of why the Iphone polaroid app is fun. It’s as plain and stupid as the fact that people just like to shake things.
Fun is so important in a good product’s experience that even if it’s unnecessary, irrelevant and might sometimes undermine function it should stay there, in all it’s silly glory.
