Voicemail, You're Not Wanted...

From Farhad Manjoo, of Slate:

The bill of particulars is damning. Unlike your e-mail inbox, voice mail is impossible to skim: If your phone tells you that you've got five new messages, you've got no choice but to listen to at least a bit of each one before you can decide what to do with it. In a user-interface decision that I suspect might violate some subclause of the Geneva Conventions, your voice-mail system insists on making you listen to the same instructional prompts between each message. But wait, is it 9 to archive and 7 to skip, or is that the way the work phone does it? I couldn't tell you, because every voice-mail system seems to have settled on different numbers to activate its main functions. It's an absurdly backward mode of human-computer interaction.

In other words, someone out there with some smarts has realized how much voice mail sucks. The Intern (that lovable goat) will be delighted to hear it.

Comments

[Anonymous]

That's why I have an iPhone. I can pick and choose which voice mail message I want and delete even before having to listen to it.

:D