You float like a feather

AN OPEN LETTER TO ORANGE
(as in the telecommunications company)

Dear Orange Folks,

I think you’re doing a good job. I do, however, have certain strong feelings about a particular product of yours.

One of your corporate services, BEW (Business Everywhere) is a big part of my working life due to the nature of my job. It lets me dial in to my company’s private servers from wherever I am in the world, as long as there is an internet connection present.

Now that is all good. (And kudos to the guys who worked on the last upgrade — connections are more stable these days. Chest bumps all round!)

Where was I. Oh yes. While I have few complaints about your services, I must say the first eight seconds of any dial-in process quite bothers me. You see, this is the image that greets me each time:

*silent scream*

Now what is odd about this picture?

For starters, those photographer-types will tell you that your focus is all off, and uh, things like depth perception are wonky. But. As a general know-nothing plebian, I have issues with the woman in the picture. I speak for myself and for several colleagues, as well as (possibly) the other thousands of silent suffering BEW users all over the world.

Surrealism bites! Who is this strange woman in strange corduroy trousers and a green knitted top? In what looks like a field of dying weeds? I mean:

• Those trousers are terribly ill-fitting.

• That sweater looks like some random garment the stylist threw at her right before the photographer went “Okay, now look into the camera and pretend like you aren’t worried about rattlesnakes crawling up your roomy pantlegs!”
• And what about that hair? It doesn’t say ‘windswept’. ‘Frazzled as all hell’ is the message that comes through.

What is she thinking? Who is that phantom man standing in the background? And why are they in a random field looking like they’re waiting for the mothership to return?

I ask myself these difficult questions each time I use your BEW service. Those eight seconds or so distress me in a manner that I cannot explain, and I think I may not be alone.

When people operate remotely and have to dial in to work, let’s safely assume that they prefer their first visual encounter not be one like this. I’m not talking Man Ray surrealism here, this is plain disturbing randomness.

Now I cannot speak for anyone as to what that ideal visual should be (because in my head, I would probably say, juicy cheeseburger) but this just does not work.

I hope you will be struck by the gravity of this issue, and how it affects the user experience. Let’s have some change we can believe in, as Senator Obama would say.

Yours in hope,
L.

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