The London Eye is a large Ferris wheel erected opposite the Palace of Westminster in celebration of the millennium. It is a very successful tourist attraction offering unrivalled views over London. It makes use of all the most advanced technology from its space age white tubular construction to the fully computerised telephone and Internet booking system.

My parents live outside of London and have been asking me for several months to book them tickets on the Eye for a Saturday afternoon. They suggested a list of dates when they could make it to London and I rang up the Eye’s booking telephone system.

A kind, helpful computerised voice patiently explained all my booking options, how long a ‘flight’ on the Eye would take, where the Eye was situated and what precautions and preparations we should make before our visit. I was then asked to type in the date of our intended visit on my telephone keypad. This I did and the kind helpful voice told me which date I had typed in and then regretfully told me that she was unable to take bookings for that date and suggested I type in another date, which I repeatedly did only to be regretfully informed that she was unable to take bookings for any of the dates which I my parents could make it to London. At this point I gave up and rang to tell my parents that the Eye seemed to be sold out indefinitely. I was mildly irritated by the system, it did not need to tell me all about the Eye first if it was ultimately not going to sell me any tickets. I would have preferred to find out at the beginning of the call whether or not I could get tickets and then be told all the useful information about where the Eye was subsequently if I had managed to book tickets.

A few weeks later I happened to be walking on Embankment and walked past the Eye’s booking office. Having nothing else particular to do I went in to enquire from a human being whether the Eye was indeed completely booked for months to come. ‘Oh no.’ explained the kind, helpful assistant after I had queued for ten minutes, ‘We reserve some tickets for telephone sales and they have sold out, but you can book tickets in person here.’ So I booked tickets and me and my parents had a wonderful Saturday afternoon looking out over the Thames and being able to see as far as Windsor Castle.

The London Eye only got my business because I managed to overcome the obstacles put in my way by the badly designed telephone booking system. The system did not help me, it hindered me. There was no way I could have found out from the telephone system that there were actually tickets available, even though that information must have been available to the automated booking system. If I hadn't happened to be walking along Embankment with nothing special to do the Eye would have missed out on my business. I can only imagine how many sales the Eye is currently losing because of their telephone system.

This is the broad idea of this unit. Someone in the Eye's management team decided to implement an automated telephone booking system to save money; they would not have to pay expensive human telephonists who get hungry, have to use the toilet and join unions. The saving made to the company by the automated telephone system is there and obvious to anyone auditing their books. (The cost of hiring telephonists would be £x, the cost of implementing the automated system is £y, where y is less than x. Hence a saving of £x – y.) The loss to the company of people not making bookings because of the bad design of the booking system is a lot less obvious. So much so that it is unlikely that the Eye's management is even aware of it.