Archive for August, 2008

Ultimate clarity, take 2

Published
by
Nathan Zeldes
on August 7, 2008
in Bad design
. 2 Comments

Remember those gloves with utterly superfluous instructions? Here is a new contender for “most unnecessary instructions”.

Frito-Lay Sunflower Seeds

This package of sunflower seeds, from the USA, bears the directive:

Eating instructions: crack open shells, discard shells, enjoy the seeds!

Nice try, Frito-Lay, but – Uh-oh! – you might still get sued by someone: you forgot to Frito-Lay Sunflower Seeds instructionstell them to chew before swallowing the seeds!

Actually, this one is so silly that I really can’t make up my mind whether they did it because of the usual rampant CYA, or whether someone at Frito has a sense of humor and is taking a jab at the trend of assuming we consumers are idiots. Any opinion?

A crash on the U-bahn: Windows and Non-PC applications

Published
by
Nathan Zeldes
on August 4, 2008
in Bad design and Improvement
. 0 Comments

I was in Berlin, where they have a subway system that, though it dates back to 1902, is as effective as it is pleasant (part of this last may have to do with the fact that the tunnels are close to the surface, so there is less of the “going down to the bowels of the earth” feeling you get in systems like that in London; you descend a few steps down – or, in some cases, up, as some areas have the train above street level – and you are ready to travel).

Berlin U-bahn Monitor

Anyway, on the carriages they have ceiling-mounted screens that show a variety of local news and entertainment. Good idea. And then, one day, I look at the screen and I see that most recognizable of computer entities: the Windows error message dialog box. It stayed there for the entire trip, informing the fascinated travelers that it was “Unable to locate DLL”.

This of course elicited a few sniggers from the crowd, but there is a Berlin U-bahn Monitor with Windows error messagemore serious lesson here. If they figured Windows was the best tool to use on a public transport system, they’re welcome to use it; though Windows is, by definition, a system for the PC, and that stands for Personal Computer, not for Public Conveyance. However, when a dialog like this appears on my Personal Computer, as it does on occasion, I can take action, if only to hit the Vulcan Nerve Pinch key combination. But on a train there is no keyboard with Ctrl-Alt-Del, nor a Reset button. So why show us this useless gobbledygook? The system in this case ought NOT to show the dialog about the DLL; it should instead erase the screen and display a humorous image related to the situation and a message such as “We’re sorry, there is a malfunction. This is being addressed. Thank you for your patience”. Alternatively, the screen might simply switch itself off on program malfunction. Anything but the incongruous error message box.

Using Windows for non-PC applications may or may not be a good move, but it is happening in many places; at least there should be a version of Windows optimized for such non-interactive situations!

Great service for a CardScan!

Published
by
Nathan Zeldes
on August 1, 2008
in Odds and Ends
. 3 Comments

The day I left New York to fly back to Israel I bought, on an impulse, a CardScan business card scanner at Best Buy. I’d received all these cards from colleagues at the IORG conference, and the thought of typing all the details into my computer was depressing…

Anyway, I got home, installed the software, and the scanner wouldn’t work right. Yikes! I mean, I build electronic gear, so I know this can happen… but I was thousands of miles from the nearest Best Buy. I’d just transported a paperweight halfway across the planet!

So I called CardScan’s tech support number, and a nice gentleman there took me patiently through some troubleshooting and concluded that the hardware was at fault. The guy told me he’d get someone in touch about a replacement and I went to sleep. Next day I get an email from a Mr. John Phillips in Canada, who is with OptiProc, a CardScan reseller. He told me to send him a scan of my receipt, my address, a description of the fault, and so on; and he’ll ship me a replacement as soon as I did. Not after considering my reply, mind you; nor after I send back the unit. Immediately when he gets my address. And he did; in fact he FedEx’d the new unit, for added speed. Only when this tested OK – which it did – was I to post the old unit back to Canada.

Good customer support is a key part of the user experience, and this is as good as it gets – so, kudos to CardScan, to OptiProc, and to John!

CardScab business Card scanner

The scanner, by the way, turned out to be a cute little gadget – you place a card in its input end and seconds later it’s scanned, OCR’d and parsed into your contacts database. A truly useful device if you venture often outside your cubicle and actually meet other people!