It’s in the Details

Cisco needs to do a better job of showing information that is important to the user. This struck me as I tried to redial an extension today.​

Our Cisco systems has a neat feature, Voice Directory.​ Press the button, say the name of the person in your company you want to talk to, and it dials the number for you. It is great not having to look up the extension. When we bought the system I didn‘t think I would use it, I now use it every day.

But it has its limits. When I check my call log I do not see the extension I called because I called the Voice Directory which in turn transferred me to the user’s extension. And if the line was busy and I press the Redial​ button, the phone will dial Voice Directory rathe than the user’s extension.

The system should be smarter than that. It should know that I want to see what I wanted to reach and not that I dialed the Voice Directory.

I would also like the Voice Directory to work when I transfer a call. When I transfer a call I am back to looking up the extension on a paper phone list.​

It all sees so 1990s. The phone calls some extension to do some function. The system tries to hide this from me as well as it can, but sometimes it strikes me as veneer and doesn't provide as high quality user experience as possible.