Should I or Shouldn’t I?

    I like this product and use it a lot.

    Lucky for me I’m not good at following instructions.

The Incredible Value of Used Things

I was scoping out Kindle for some new books and came across this posting. It seems odd to me that a used book would be more than twice as expensive as a new one but apparently Amazon knows stuff we don’t.

Anyway I just thought this was interesting (maybe it’s just me!)

Amazon Shmamazon – It’s All on You Mr. Customer

I just placed an order with Amazon.com for some DVDs. Then I discovered I could get them cheaper and quicker somewhere else.

So Why not just cancel my order I thought – sounds reasonable but not to Amazon. Apparently you cannot cancel an order they have accepted but not yet filled.

What they would like you to do is wait till the things you don’t want show up and the charges go on your credit card.

Ah but it gets better

Then, you can return the items but you have to wait until a certain date to get a full refund.

You also have to go on line and ask for a return label.

And, there’s no way to call Amazon to discuss your problem – they don’t seem to want to help out in any way.

So much for the flagship of on-line shopping experiences. I really don’t want any more like this!

I just bought a Kindle – which means that I have to keep doing business with Amazon until I throw it away. But that’s all I’ll be doing with Amazon from now on. It’s too tiring buying from them.

When Near Isn’t Even Close

How far would you go for a job?

I belong to a number of job hunting sites. I have a job search profile which outlines what kind of work I am looking for and how near to me (within about 50km) I would prefer the positions to be. Depending on the site I get some interesting job listings (more about that another time) which in no way reflect the parameters I have specified.

But of all the quirky things these sites do one stands out the most and that is the one that shows me those nearby jobs.

Many of the positions are in Toronto which is on the north side of Lake Ontario. I live in St Catharines which is on the south side of Lake Ontario.

True to my requirements jobs in Toronto fall within the 50 km radius but only if I intend to take a boat trip across the lake. Otherwise it’s about a 130 km. drive. I can only presume that the people who program these sites don’t think much beyond the obvious.

When we design things we need to think outside the box to make sure that the things inside the box actually deliver as promised.

When the Value Add doesn’t add value

My wife and I recently moved and we selected one of the premier moving companies around. One of the added value items they promoted was a detailed inventory and tagging of all of our goods to ensure that they would all be safely returned. Sounds good – we let them take the extra time they needed (at our hourly expense) to catalog our stuff.

On move in day it all came unglued. They suggested that while we could take the time to check off every item they brought into the house it would probably add about 2 hours to the off loading time (again at our expense). We opted to save ourselves both some time and money hoping against all hope that all of our stuff was there.

So we bought their sales pitch partially on this basis of surety then had abandon it it because it just proved to be impractical. So while there was a promise of added value – it wasn’t really all that valuable. At least not for us – the customer.

In the end this was not a particularly good user experience. A promise is only valuable if it is kept – does your website keep it’s promises?

A Plague on both your houses!

I can only assume old Willy Shakespeare was trying to update to the latest version of Adobe Reader on his Windows 7 laptop when he uttered this famous phrase. I mean really. I expect to run into the odd software install problem when I’m introducing an obscure little app into my machine.

But Adobe Reader.

Come on folks. Between Windows 7 and Adobe Reader there may not be any other programs so frequently downloaded and installed.

Unfortunately this isn’t a new experience. I’ve been having MSI problems ever since I went to W7 in late 2009.

You’d think that these two giants of the industry would have their stuff together so that I’m not left having to behave like a system admin to do a simple update.

Or maybe, just maybe they are mad at each other over the Flash war that seems to be heating up and we are the collateral damage.

Looked for their best work but couldn’t find it!

I came across a website for a web design company. On their front page they have a prominent central area entitled  “Take a look at our best work”.  It contains two images for websites I presume they built.

So I tried.

The first website image said the site was finished. Apparently IE didn’t agree because it couldn’t launch the page!!

The second page caption said that the website was not live yet.

So apparently their best work is to present non working or incomplete sites to the world.

Not my idea of best…but maybe that’s just me.

Keep ‘Em Coming Back

Seth Godin is one of America’s foremost authors on marketing and self development amoung other things.  He has published a number of  NY Times best sellers, the latest being Linchpin. He is also the founder of  Squidoo

He has something fresh, interesting and relevant to say everyday but some days he really strikes a personal note with me -  today was one of those days.

His article on Levy flight makes a very poignant commentary on web site loyalty. I won’t bore you with my summation – better you should go look for yourself

Seth Godin and Levy flight

Disorderly Conduct

One of the prime components of good UX is structuring the order of events in the most useful and identifiable way. Viewers should not have to figure out what comes next or if they are doing things in the right order. Consider what happens when this isn’t done.

How to diffuse a bomb

Step 1 – cut the red wire
Step 2 – but first……..

All the News..And then some!

One of our local all news radio stations has a weather forecast contest and listeners can win prizes if the station is wrong about the forecast. All you have to do is sign up and gather some points connecting to things. Then you’re eligible.

The form says certain fields are mandatory, one of which is the Home Phone #. It also says to enter your mobile number so they can contact you. It doesn’t indicate that this field is necessary but guess what..try to submit the form and it says you must provide your cell number.

If so, why isn’t that field marked mandatory? And if that’s how they want to contact us why is the home phone number necessary? And why isn’t the mandatory field alert at the beginning of the form rather than at the end?

Hey I’d make a good reporter. I’m always asking questions!