blog

Give Me Images, Please

2009-04-28T07:44:00.006-05:00

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

2009-04-01T12:53:00.003-05:00

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

2009-03-06T10:51:00.005-06:00

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

2009-02-26T11:33:00.003-06:00

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.