Help
What public spaces might learn from the internet:I landed at Washington Dulles International Airport Monday evening at about 8:50PM. The flights bags were taking longer than usual to come down the carousel than normal, but when I found myself still standing waiting at 10PM I decided it was time to assume that my bag wasn't going to be showing up. But where was the airline baggage desk? Where were the airline representatives? Fortunately, there was an information desk just near the carousel. Unfortunately, no one was there. There were no signs, explicit or otherwise, suggesting when someone would return, or if anyone would return at all. Since I was already in the presence of an information desk, the airport signage was absent of any suggestions where another desk might be. For some reason, this scenario reminded me of the claustrophobic feeling I get all too often with software help tools: the help is there, which is reassuring, but my questions remain unanswered. For even the most complete help index, it's difficult for a software provider to know every question their thousands of user might have. The internet provides an elegant solution in the form of help groups, discussion forums, etc. The smartest software makers organize and empower these groups to pick up where they leave off, linking directly to them. "Did we answer your question? No? Try here."
How does a service like this organize itself in the physical world? How could the airport help me find those knowledgeable souls that could answer my question amongst the other similarly lost tourists? Eventually, like refining a Google query, I found someone to help me out.
In the end, it turned out that the information desk was indeed closed for the night, and while most of the flight's bags came out on the announced carousel, many came out on another. I'm not too impressed with Dulles airport.
<< Home