Follow the useless scrolling rule to a real-world example of poor user interaction
At a McDonald’s on Market, above the counter hangs an electronic sign, like the kind you see in post offices that flash old sports scores or unhelpfully vague news headlines at you. This one scrolls a message. It says:
WE DO NOT OFFER SINGLE LINE SERVICE. PLEASE FORM A LINE BEHIND ANY OPEN REGISTER.
You can read the sign easily — if you’re bored enough to resort to it — as you stand in the single line that the customers always form at this McDonald’s.
The customers aren’t stupid, or insolent. They’re just doing what they’ve become used to at every other fast-food place, customer-service counter, or coffee shop, because it works so well, because it’s so efficient. Sure, at the supermarket or the Target you have to endure that separate-line folderol, on account of all the giant merchandise-handling stations in the way. And bars? Don’t get me started. Unless you’re buying.) But just to order fast food? Please. It’s one line and next, next, next, baby.
More Sign of a Bad Idea
The hosting company’s response dispels the horror of a huge mistake
So my hosting company, Dreamhost, made a major computing screwup today, accidentally charging me and most other customers for the entire year of 2008 as if it were past due. And if you had automatic charging or debit set up, the Dreamhost folks took the money you didn’t owe them. It’s a big deal, and has drawn attention.
But. They caught the mistake quickly, and explained it to customers in detail. They updated their status blog to let everyone know what was happening and that it would be fixed. Charges were canceled; money taken was refunded. In most cases within a day. And they have apologized profusely, in blog and email. Yes, the tone, while seriously apologetic, is, like every communication from Dreamhost, light, silly. That’s them. So is admitting the mistake, fixing it quickly, and, in the end, making up for it with great rates and service.
The aggrieved are talking of bailing, saying the company’s business goose is cooked. Those people haven’t been paying attention. Quick, name a company that admitted, and fixed, a major mistake quickly, and apologized honestly and repeatedly, in their own words, free of corporate ass-covery. Come up with anyone? Didn’t think so.
Am I fleeing? No way. Even when it f*cks up hard, Dreamhost rocks.
The TV series Brothers and Sisters has failed to interest me, though admittedly I’ve only ever given it a few minutes’ chance. But a very long and cathartic essay on The Huffington Post by the show’s ousted creator, Jon Robin Baitz, is another matter. It’s a two-parter, but the best stuff is in Part 2 (link via TV Tattle), in which he unloads on smarmy entertainment journalists (particularly one for TV Guide who has come to prominence "dishing" spoilers), depicts LA as "the world capital of loneliness," and details his understanding that, unfortunately, given Hollywood, the show could never have been the mold-breaker he wanted it to be, even if he had been a better show-runner.
Speaking of questionable TV reporting, Newsday notes tonight’s Comedy Central debut of Futurama, which it says "gets new life on cable." Gets new life? It’s been off cable for all of 44 hours, after previous contract-holder Adult Swim ran it down to very last minutes of the old year.
Gawker Media, whose sites Defamer and Consumerist have been applauded here before, has launched a sci-fi site, io9, with a cool-creepy banner. Oh io9, please, please, please keep me from ever having to resort to SyFy Portal again. All I ask is that you write about something other than Galactica at least two-thirds of the time, and that you keep the Who/Torchwood spoilers to a minimum for those of us who don’t want to exert the effort, to, um, "borrow" the British broadcasts off the Net.
Hey, maybe I’ll blog this year.
Here’s hoping this underappreciated wonder of a movie musical gets the audience it deserves on DVD
I have fallen in love — as consuming as any — with a movie. And its music. And other music by the guy who made that music.
One step at a time. The movie is Colma: The Musical, made for an ultra-low budget on the doorstep of San Francisco. Unless you caught it in a film festival, or live in SF, New York, Atlanta, or San Diego, where it played one theater each this summer, you haven’t seen it. But it’s out on DVD Tuesday (11.20). Rent it. Buy it. Love it.
More Singing the Praises of Colma
No doubt you are already piping-hotly debating the report that coffee shops discriminate against women (as reported at Slate). The very limited study (of eight Boston-area shops) that prompts this "finding" seems questionable. Maybe it’s not that coffee shops discriminate against women; maybe it’s that Boston coffee shops discriminate against women.
This is old news now, but, for the sake of completeness after my last Mystery Science Theater 3000 post: the remaining MST alums who weren’t already involved in MSTish projects, including creator Joel Hodgson, are now. An apparently riffing-oriented effort called Cinematic Titantic will debut with a live show in San Francisco. But, in a move that costs it some of my goodwill, the show’s open only to George Lucas employees. No fair! They give us Episodes I-III, and are rewarded? (Unless that’s what they’ll be riffing…)
Older still: a cool list of "100 or so of the Most Underrated/Never Seen TV Shows" (via TV Barn) I second the recommendation of Mojo’s Three Sheets, which captures the joy of alcohol better than any other show has even attempted. But don’t go near Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on Food TV, unless you want to see a host trying way, way, way too hard to be "cool."
