Archive for May 2006

Trashy Usability

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I was at a Game Design meeting at the Pittsburgh Technology Center, and I stumbled upon a sign in a small kitchen area:

a sign berating people for throwing trash away in a recycling bin

the area where the sign was in the kitchen

This strikes me as odd and a little sad. First of all, there’s clearly a process breakdown if people are throwing away non-recyclables in that recyclable area. Maybe if people are throwing away non-recyclable things often (or, more often than recyclable things), maybe the generic trash can should be more prominent, and not shoved under the sink counter.

What shocked me the most is how belligerent the sign is. Yeah, I agree, the trash can is clearly blue, which means you use it to recycle. But surely there’s a better way to solve problems than trying to shame people. Doesn’t that seem harsh?

A Progressive Response

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Based on Eric’s and Vince’s assessments of the TripSense issue I blogged about a couple weeks ago, I was suddenly very nervous to contribute my data to the Progressive database. So I emailed them asking about how the data would be used, and whether rate increases would directly be affected.

Maybe some others can relate to what Eric and Vince were saying. …Well, OK, Vince’s assessment that I drive “like a drunken rabbit who’s late for a bunny orgy” probably doesn’t apply to everyone…

a bunny with a beer can next to it

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A Unique Card Sort

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So I sorta slacked on my CHI blogging last week, but there I wanted to make sure that I blogged about a cool talk from a GA Tech student / Google intern regarding the help module in Google’s AdWords.

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wii-Tastic

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Everyone’s been talking about this wii thing. Not knowing what it was, I decided to Google it. Ohhhh… it’s the Wildlife Institute of India. Wow. I didn’t realize that we as a culture were getting so environment-conscious. And what a great design for a website while I’m at it. Kudos to everyone.

Kidding aside, everyone knows (and mostly abhors) the name for the new Nintendo console. This was the only unique angle I could hope to take while attempting to be funny, so there you go. If you want true humor, check Vince’s post.