Undercover Boss is one of my favorite new shows. Why? Because we desperately need to encourage upper management to get in touch with what’s really going on inside their companies. The right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing, and it’s harming employees just as much as customers, if not more. I was [Keep Reading…]
SeamlessWeb: Don’t get between me and my food
I’ve written about SeamlessWeb before, so you probably know that I’m a huge fan of their service (delivery from an enormous selection of restaurants), but quite appalled by their website. I put up with poor usability for two very important reasons: I love food, and there’s no other option. My biggest complaint has always been [Keep Reading…]
Bill Maher makes fun of Captcha’s poor usability
If you follow me on Twitter, you know I’m in love with Bill Maher. You might not agree with his politics, his ideology, or his bad language, but you’ve gotta admit that he has a knack for putting people in their place. At the end of each episode, Bill Maher gives his New Rules — [Keep Reading…]
Questions show passion, not doubt
I was recently contacted by someone to contribute to a project they’re working on. It was a well-connected and well-respected person whose work I’ve followed for years, so naturally I was quite excited by the inquiry. The initial email was a bit sparse — describing the project in just a couple sentences — and while [Keep Reading…]
SXSW Interactive: Never As Good As the First Time
I’m behind on summing up my thoughts on this year’s SXSW Interactive. A lot of people have panned the conference, saying “SXSW sucks,” “SXSW is dead,” and more constructively, “the conference isn’t that good.” Fast Company called the keynote with Twitter co-founder and CEO Evan Williams, “the most horrifically devastating keynote presentation in SXSW history,” [Keep Reading…]
How Little You Really Know
You have no idea how little your users really know. And that shows just how little you know. You work in technology for a living. You’ve been using a computer since you were born. You are obsessed with learning new things. You are a nerd and you hang out with other nerds. You constantly think [Keep Reading…]
I admit it: I’m always five minutes late. And it stops now.
I was just smacked in the face by a recent blog post by my dear friend Jeffrey Zeldman, Free advice: show up early, about the consequences of being late to client meetings. Why? Because it forced me to finally fess up to one of my major flaws: I’m always five minutes late. Sure, five minutes [Keep Reading…]
Photo of the day: Departures and Arrivals
Tuesday morning I was sitting in the Amtrak waiting area at New York’s Penn Station when I glanced to my right to see if my track number had been announced. There were two screens, one stacked on top of the other, with two metal plaques that indicated Departures on the top and Arrivals on the [Keep Reading…]
Photo of the day: MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY
It’s so comforting to know that in times of imminent danger, our stress call will require seven careful steps. I saw this sign posted on the Governors Island Ferry when heading back to Manhattan after a nice birthday picnic in the park. You may recall that New York City has had some ferry trouble in [Keep Reading…]
We scan from top to bottom
I shop online so often that it’s second nature for me to immediately start typing into an shipping/billing address form based on the textbox widths and layout. However, as I was just checking out from Garnet Hill, I realized something was off. Field labels are underneath the text field. Wow. Had it not been for [Keep Reading…]