I don’t want an app!
I was standing at the service desk of the new Boijmans Depot in Rotterdam this afternoon. Together with some colleagues, I had just seen all floors of the museum-that-is-not-a-museum, when another tourist approached. She was in her mid-50s and reminded me of Angela Merkel. With a German accent she asked the girl behind the desk:
‘Excuse me, do you have a map of the building? So we know what we can see here, and find the way?’
The girl was helping me, but she noticed that the woman was in desperate need of an answer, so she replied: ‘If you want information about the Depot you can download our app.’
The woman looked at her confused. ‘Don’t you have a map, a paper, with information about everything here?’
‘No, we don’t have that. All the information is in our app. You can use it to scan QR codes and it can show you the floorplan.’
‘I don’t like an app’, the woman said, ‘it’s too complicated.’ She was clearly frustrated.
‘I can help you download it if you want,’ the girl said.
‘No, no!’ Now the woman was getting even more annoyed. ‘You don’t understand. I don’t want an app. I don’t like to use my mobile to go through a museum, I just want to look around! I don’t want to look at my mobile!’
‘I’m sorry, we don’t have anything physical,’ the girl said, ‘but over there by the elevator is an index of what you can find on every floor.’
The woman turned her head, as did I, to see what she meant. It was just a list of the different floors with some labels, printed on the wall next to the elevator. Clearly disappointed about this lack of non-digital information the woman turned to her husband, shrug her shoulder and moved to the entrance.
I could completely empathize with the woman. While out of curiosity I did download the app myself and scanned a few QR codes, I also preferred keeping my phone in my pocket when I moved through the building. Why look at a screen if you can look at an actual Rembrandt or Van Gogh? Why find your way with an app, if you can just use the building itself for orientation? Just like in this museum, more and more information is becoming digital, forcing us to rely on our smartphones for everyday things. I’m not sure this is a positive trend.
But when I came home tonight, I read a hopeful news article. Apparently this week, the Dutch parliament accepted a motion requesting the government to always develop a user-friendly non-digital alternative, whenever new digital services are introduced. So that people who don’t have sufficient ‘digital skills’ or people who do not want to use digital communication, are not excluded from essential services.
Even though I make a living of designing digital experiences, I am aware that many people can’t or don’t want to use digital applications. Still it’s easy to forget. Thankfully I can think of the German woman at the museum to remind myself: digital should never be the only option.