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One of photo sharing/social networking site Flickr’s interesting features is its ability to create RSS feeds for photos from its members. I have several such feeds to help keep me in touch with distant friends. Today they all suffered an interesting glitch: they delivered me ten seemingly random photographs from a bunch of different folks. […]

I was initially critical of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink for not delivering on its implied promises, but I’ve revised my opinion of it substantially. It’s had a real impact on the way I think about certain types of situations. I still don’t think it provides a foolproof method for applying its principles, but it does offer […]

at least the coffee’s pretty good.

My bank*’s website and the Shaw’s supermarket in our neighborhood have both been undergoing sweeping redesigns.
The common denominator is that both broke designs that weren’t broken (at least from a customer perspective).
The Bank
The bank’s former website was ugly by the standards of the modern web, but its interface was solid — clearly organized, and […]

Here’s a screen capture from on-line retailer’s registration form. The red asterisk indicates that these elements are both required.

I’m specifically picking on barnesandnoble.com, but many other web commerce sites have similar problems. These questions and their answers can be divided neatly into two equally unsatisfactory categories:

Questions that are too easy for a would-be identity thief […]

This is one of a pair of identical signs at a standard four-way traffic light with left turn arrows:

Interpreted literally, it seems to say that bicycles should only proceed on a red (or yellow light). That’s clearly insane. My best guess is that it’s really a “No right turn on red” sign specifically directed at […]

My regular readers will know that I rarely side with drivers if there’s another side to take, but this “No Parking” sign strikes even me as a bit much:

It’s not where drivers’ eyes will be looking for it, and it’s so short that drivers in tall vehicles might not be able to see it. And […]

From the instruction manual for the Memorex MPD8610 CD/MP3 player:

Really, now who could be confused by that?
(p.s.: If you’re wondering, it’s not included. For that mattter, it’s not provided, either.)