Give Me Images, Please

I noticed something about my own email reading behavior recently. I've been regularly clicking the "Always show images from SomeAddress@SomeDomain.com" link in Gmail. I get a lot of marketing email from places like Pottery Barn Kids, Travelocity and Barnes and Noble that I haven't bothered to unsubscribe to. I guess the occasional well-targeted ad doesn't bother me. I don't read them, but I sometimes see them as I'm clicking "Next" to page through my unread mail. When I get the imageless version, the formatting is usually so bad that I can't even scan it. There is no hierarchy, no alignment, no attempt at simple design rules that would make it something that I would want to look at.

It would be unfair to say that all of these messages are bad. I get messages from Marriott about special rates, and it includes a well-formatted (but image-free) table that I can glance at without being offended. It's positioned in the email in such a way that it draws readers in and gets the information across easily. For this particular email, I haven't felt the need to see the images because it's so readable without them.

Here's an idea, direct e-marketers: pay attention to your non-image emails so that when email systems (prudently) strip out the images, your would-be customers get some kind of message. The "if we can't do images then we don't have to design" approach just falls short, I think.

everything has an interface these days

Well, I bought a new cordless phone for the house. Our old cordless phone didn't work with the AT&T DSL service. (Technology strikes again.) Got a $20 Uniden phone, and I was a little shocked at the features at this price point. Caller ID, speakerphone... uh, belt clip? Anyway, I was storing some numbers in speed dial. Specifically, I was setting it up to speed dial our home number so I could easily check our voicemail.

When I went to dial from the memory function, I pressed TALK > MEMORY > 1 (because I stored the number in the first memory). The display looked something like this:

01>VOICE MAIL
02 (EMPTY)
03 (EMPTY)

Unfortunately, the phone didn't dial the number for our voice mail. Just a dial tone.

I tried various things to get the memory to work. (Pressing TALK/FLASH again just started a 3-way call; pressing a right arrow/pound key didn't do anything; pressing the up and down arrows just moved the cursor do different memory locations.)

Finally, I came across a small button sandwiched between "REDIAL/PAUSE" and "DELETE." It was labeled "SELECT/CHANNEL." Go figure. In order to make a call to check my voicemail, I have to press TALK > MEMORY > 1 > SELECT. Hmm. My home number: 7 digits, speed dial: 4 key presses.

Maybe next time you can do some interface design, Uniden?

LinkedIn v. Facebook

So, the pesky problem of finding work is invading the world of social network sites. This makes sense to me in the case of LinkedIn, because it is blatantly a professional networking system with functionality that enables members to recommend the work of others--even the profile itself is basically an online resume. However, the McKinsey Quarterly recently published a story about job seekers invading Facebook. While I certainly would encourage the use of social networks in seeking a job, I wonder if Facebook is the right conduit. I guess it's all in how you do it.

Thanks for the status bar, Gmail

I just noticed that Gmail added a progress indicator to show the status of uploading attachments to email messages. It seems to have replaced the old, less helpful "Still working..." message that used to appear. This is a nice improvement for helping users understand the system status. I have to say I'm guilty of wondering if Gmail had stalled when uploading larger attachments.