At 7:36 A.M., a little over an hour after my uncle David dropped me off at the deer stand, my pocket vibrated, the short notification of an incoming text message: “Will pick you up closer to 9, unless I hear you shoot, then I’ll be by at 8:30. Please acknowledge.”
I felt ridiculous sending my reply from “the swamp,” but later found out he was browsing the web the whole morning!
After I was done fumbling with my phone to send the requested reply, I saw motion just past the far end of the field, and three deer walked past. They never ventured in to the field and I wonder I spooked them with all the moving around it took to take off my gloves, fish the phone out of my pocket, send the message, and put the phone back in my pocket. They never paused once I spotted them, but I bet they were watching me the whole time.
Via Steve Northover’s Inside SWT:
The week was an almost perfect example of prototyping. The code we have is utter crap and we have cut every corner, however, we have learned the technology and explored the area. Prototyping is about reducing risk using a short term, high energy, low quality approach to prove that a solution is possible and scope the time frame.
We spent a couple of nights at the Atlanta Marriott Downtown, a hotel we knew previously from the La Leche League conference in April 2006. I was reminded how the low-end full-service hotels such as Marriott are a compromise I’d rather not make. I’d prefer to stay in a lower-service hotel such as a Holiday Inn Express or Quality Inn, or go farther up-market if I can find a really good deal on a truly nice hotel. I also prefer midtown to downtown - it’s a bit less touristy, it has easy access to Piedmont Park, and the general variety and quality of restaurants is much higher.
This morning as Finley and I left the house for a cool and brisk morning walk, I noticed the cabin lights in our Honda Odyssey were on. I went back in for the keys, opened the front door, and looked for the cabin light switch. I wasn’t able to find one, so I figured the light itself must be the button. Yes, how clever, the light is the button! A toggle button: push it once and the light is on. Push it again and the light stays on. Push it again and the light stays on. HUH?
I figured the lights must remain on while the doors are open, one of those helpful features engineers force on you that are well-intentioned but somehow don’t survive daily use without revealing a few flaws in the idea or the implementation, so I closed and locked the doors. Of the six cabin roof lights, four of them turned off when I locked the car. I unlocked the car, opened the door, and pressed each of those lights exactly once, then closed the door and re-locked the car.
Finley and I finally left on our walk, but I realized this is an excellent example of a bad user interface, revealed by the interaction of two systems, the light/switch assembly, which probably works as intended, and the “convenience” feature of turning on the cabin lights when the doors are open: since the auto-on feature doesn’t turn the lights off until the car is locked, if you park the car and turn on one of the lights with the doors closed, then open the door, conveniently activating the cabin roof lights, you have no visual cues to remind you that one of the lights is ON, as opposed to just on.
Imagine walking in to Sharkey’s in the early 1990’s and ordering a hamburger made with 6 ounces of certified-organic, locally-raised, grass-fed, free-range beef. I can’t, either, but it’s on the menu now, right above the bison burger.