WebWord

I had trouble signing up for US Air’s frequent flyer program (Dividend Miles). I literally tried about eight times, but failed. So, a couple of days ago I spent about 10 minutes looking for a way to send them an email. I found a way, sent my message and shuffled along.

Today I received a response. The customer service representative informed me that I could provide her with my contact information and she would sign me up. So, I hit the Reply button, typed the message, and sent the email.

It bounced. At first I was frustrated, figuring that, yet again, a big company is using a generic email address. I know this makes sense for many reasons, but the practice drives me crazy as a user. In any event, although it was true the email address was generic, that was not the root cause.

After scanning the email, I found the following two lines:

[===> If you need to reply to us, please type below this line ===>]

[===> If you need to reply to us, please type above this line ===>]

No, I’m not kidding. I’ve never seen anything quite like this, except in code comments. Then it hit me. Bing! That is exactly what US Air is doing. They are exposing their technology to me, the end user.

I’ll bet they have code to parse responses from schlumps like me. They probably programmatically evaluate the subject line, which includes an incident number, and then they parse out the text between the two lines. Clever. Maybe.

How about the usability factor? Does cost savings trump usability here?

I’ve been reading a lot of about how the real estate market bubble is going to burst. But I am curious about the term “bubble” as it applies to the real estate market. When you think about bubbles, what do you think? Thin, fragile, ready to burst? That’s what I think. Doesn’t irrational exuberance make more sense?

Fear of money? Are you kidding? Not at all. Read on if you think I’m crazy.

How well do you understand money? How well do you understand how money flows in and out of your life? Can you directly link your financial health to how you feel? Who taught you to balance your checkbook? Do you know how to pick a good mutual fund? Do you understand financial risk? Are your assets diversified? Is debt ever a good thing?

I’m asking these questions because I am constantly astounded about how little people understand money. Many people live paycheck to paycheck. Many people complain about money. Many people are on the brink of bankruptcy. Many people are looking to win the lottery.

The truth is that most people simply don’t understand how money works. They don’t understand what money is. Money is critical to people, yet they don’t know much about it.

Why?

You don’t really learn about money in school. If you are lucky, you learn about it at home or from your friends. However, if you don’t have a good teacher, you can be in big trouble. Even if you learn on your own, you’ll never really know if you are seeing the entire picture.

You might turn over your money to a financial advisor. But, do you understand what the financial advisor is really doing? Do you know how to pick a good advisor? Are financial advisors working in your best interest? How do you know?

Money seems so simple, but maybe it isn’t. Maybe that cash in your pocket means something different than what you think it does.

Here’s the radical point: Most people are afraid of money. They have fear about how to get it and how to keep it. They have fear about how to handle it when they do have it. They even have fear about how to spend it. They have fear of losing it. Sadly, most people don’t seem to feel good about money.

If you have a minute, talk about how you learned about money. Did your parents throw you a clue? Also, talk a little bit about how you feel financially. That is, do you have a simple way to match your financial situation to how you feel? Do you know from month to month if things are getting better or worse? Do you fear money? Do you know why you fear money?

Avis needs to try harder. On their My Avis sign up page they say:

Please note that information marked with an asterisk (*) is optional.

Virtually every other form on the web does it the other way around. Required fields are indicated (color, bold, asterisk). Tsk, tsk.

Can wiki pages be locked when being edited by others? Is there any check in, check out capability? I can’t find any solid answers.

Speaking of wikis, do you have any favorite web-based, collaborative, document management tools? How do you share a document, or series of documents, with others, while providing them with editing and revision access?

I don’t write as well as I would like. In part, it is because I don’t fully grasp how to use the tools available to me. For example, I don’t deeply and fully understand how to use quotation marks. I can limp along but I’m not a true expert.

I work with some really smart people. A few of them are brilliant. However, many of these people, primarily geeks, are very poor writers. I’ve been shocked at how poorly they write. Their command of the written language is frightening. Then again, I almost always understand what they are saying. They communicate well but they don’t write well.

So, how important is good writing? If I can understand you properly do you really need to be able to write well? By the way, I understand that proper writing often yields better communication. Is there something more to the picture?

“Eighteen percent of users admitted that they’d clicked on the “unsubscribe” link in spam, another behavior that’s exploited by spammers, who then know the address, and perhaps the entire domain, are active and so potential targets for follow-on spam campaigns.”

I don’t like the tone of this article. The locus of blame is on the user; attack the victim. Clicking on an unsubscribe link in an email is natural. In fact, I could argue that 82% of users are doing something wrong by NOT clicking. Clicking on an unsubscribe link seems a lot more sane than doing…nothing.

Bad analogy: You can ignore cancer and hope that it goes away or you can take action via surgery, radiation, and/or chemicals. What makes the most sense?

Read the article…

Apogee (Szuc and Gaffney) — “In architectural and technical drawings, different layers or transparencies are often overlaid to assemble the complete design solution. A similar “design transparency” approach can ensure that product teams are working towards a common goal, gaining a balanced view, and increasing the chance of success.”

Simple article with a simple message. And, I like the questions the authors are asking.

Read the article…

Jakob Nielsen is doing something weird. On useit.com he is using a combination of text and images to display email addresses. Visit the site and scroll to the bottom. Highlight the text, if you need to, and you’ll see what I am talking about. Is he trying to avoid email harvesting? Is he trying to be clever? Why not just make each email address an image? Is this a lame attempt to save bandwidth? Bizarre.

Structure. Format. Ordering. Why do these things matter? I think it boils down to the fact that humans generally like the comfort that regularity offers.

* Breaking tradition (smashing, violent!)
* Thinking outside the box (outside, cold, alone!)
* Breaking taboos; breaking free (smashing, violent!)
* Walking outside the lines (risky!)
* Changing paradigms (strange word; obsfucation!)
* Play by the rules (veiled threat, warning!)

Any time you do something new, there is risk. Any time you are different, there is risk. Any time you throw off the blanket of regularity life is less comfortable. It might be more exciting, but it is usually less comfortable.

This, my friend, is why risk is rewarded. Most people are afraid of change. They are afraid of risk. But, since change is difficult, it can pay off.

But there is more to the story. There is something subtle going on that I can’t quite explain. I’ve noticed that some things go together but they only go together in a certain order. I can’t seem to figure out why the order is the order, but it is there. Definitely. I’m sure you’ve seen these before:

* North vs. South
* Black and White
* Cream and Sugar
* Heads or Tails
* Bread and Butter

These “pairs” just look right. The order is correct. However, read the entries below:

* South vs. North
* White and Black
* Sugar and Cream
* Tails or Heads
* Butter and Bread

Admit it. These don’t feel right, do they. The words are fine but the normal order of the pairings are odd. They are wrong.

Why?

p.s. Sorry that I’ve not posted much recently. Very busy. Chicago, Washington, Montgomery (Alabama). Not sure when things will slow down.

“It is absolutely critical that we begin to support the development of free content built on proprietary platforms”

Other tools?

Read the article…

“Now, don’t know about Webshots? I didn’t either until recently. But Webshots has 23 million members (Flickr has less than a million). and they get 750,000 uploads a day. More uploads in five days than Flickr has had in all of its existence.”

Webshots vs. Flickr? Fair comparison? Apples to apples?

Read more…