• Interaction Design Community Considered Harmful
  Ah! A new kind of fatigue emerges: professional community fatigue. Interesting and slightly controversial perspective here: stop participating in your professional groups and go do some work.

• The 20 Worst Foods In America
  Another reminder of how bad some restaurant food is – regardless of how its positioned – is always useful. It’s hard to be a responsible eater without all the facts. Maybe these companies are to blame…

I’ve been looking at smartphone options, and was reminded of an exchange between Jon Stewart and John Hodgman I heard last summer on the Daily Show:

Jon Stewart and John Hodgeman Discussing Ultimate Fighting

Jon: Why combine all these sports?

John: Why combine a cell phone and a camera?

Jon: That’s my point exactly. All you get is a crappy camera and a crappy phone.

John: Yes, but it fits in your pocket. And isn’t that the promise of America’s melting pot?

This got me thinking about what I really need from my phone. Here’s a list, in the order each item came to mind:

– Camera
– Phone
– Address book
– Alarm clock
– Text messaging
– Email
– Durable
– Waterproof
– Cool looking

But does this list describe a smart phone, or a smart camera? Right now, the paradigm of “phone” dominates. Will that change? Will there be a future in which “device equity” prevails?

While checking in online for a United Airlines flight, you may be offered the opportunity to upgrade to Economy Plus. It’s likely that most people decline upsells in many situations, though. The default would be to click “no thanks” and move on to completing the transaction. But United has done some tricky and manipulative interface design. The bright yellow arrow with bold text placed on the right is almost irresistible. E-commerce sites have trained us to envision a transaction moving from left to right (granted that they’ve landed on that model since it corresponds to how we read and other cultural factors); it’s very easy to click on the arrow and make a purchase you didn’t want. It takes cognitive work to search for the preferred option which is a lowly blue-underlined unbolded text link off to the left.

Why would United do this? Sure, they can trick a few people into mistakenly purchasing an upgrade. But at what cost to the brand? Even if they don’t fool you, you’ve had to work to avoid being fooled, and the trust (seemingly an important brand attribute for an airline) is dinged.

Grab a clue, web people @ United…this is no way to interface with customers.

• It’s nearly impossible to fully delete your Facebook account
  Sadly, this is not the case for flickr.

Latte, with sticker to cover lid hole, Tokyo

I can’t read what the green sticker says, but perhaps it’s to prevent spillage or being burned by hot steam. Maybe it’s for sanitation, to keep the drink sealed until you are ready to drink it?

One use case for a “to go” cup is to take the drink from the counter and consume it immediately. But if you are shopping for others to drink later, or it’s too hot to drink later, how to manage the drink during that transition where it’s in your possession but not being consumed? The sticker lives in that ill-defined period of time.

• Mythological optimization in golf – interview with golf club designer/manufacturer
  “Golfers feel that there is still a lot of black magic and voodoo in equipment.” – echoes themes from my post about Netflix.

Great article about Disney theme parks and the design – prototype – test – iterate – build process for a new ride, Toy Story Mania

“It is much easier and less expensive to do this before the concrete has been poured,” he added. “As rides become more complicated, your ability to tweak in the field gets harder and much more expensive.”

Across the street, in a cold, unmarked garage, Ms. Allen helped to conduct “play tests” on rudimentary versions of the ride. More than 400 people of all ages – all had signed strict nondisclosure agreements – sat on a plywood vehicle set up in front of a projection screen and played various versions of the games. Disney workers studied their reactions and interviewed them afterward.

“We were looking to see if some effects were too scary,” Ms. Allen said, “or if there wasn’t enough laughing happening during certain sequences.”

Among the discoveries: People wanted to be able to compare scores after they were finished playing, while some children had a hard time reaching the cannonlike firing controller, christened by Disney as a “spring action shooter.” Engineers added a computer screen to vehicles to display scores and installed the controls on movable lap bars.

“We were trying to find out things we didn’t even know to ask about,” said Sue Bryan, a senior show producer.

Corn soup in a can, Tokyo

What comes in a can with that shape? And what type of consumables are found in a vending machine? Does the appeal of one item have anything to do with what the adjacent choices are?

From a strange article in the NYT about McDonald’s holding an employee-only American Idol-style singing competition (for reasons they don’t exactly make clear)

Employee contests with big prizes are nothing new in corporate America. McDonald’s has pitted stores and regions against one another to determine who makes the best shakes.

But I thought that shakes (sorry, not milkshakes) were identical from store to store, based on a standard recipe and ingredients. Then what do you compete on? Speed? Panache?