Do You Really Have A Four Hour Work Week?

Posted on 26 December 2011 by Debbie

I know many people who have read the Four Hour Work Week book. I read it some years ago. It just didn’t seem to apply to me. I couldn’t imagine giving up most of what I was doing to people in another country to get $4/hr. Firstly, why not find people here who are happy with $10/hr? Secondly, there are some things I just wouldn’t delegate.

So as far as I can tell, I know zero people doing what that book suggested with ONE exception. There is a part of the book where he claims you will get SO much of your life back if you only check email twice a day. He’s sure that’s all you need. What is so important that you need to check email more than twice a day? That’s what the book wants you to think. Well, are you also not answering your phone except for at 9:15am and 3pm? This has lead people to set email autoresponders to let people know that they are not reading your email for another 6 hours.

Peter Shankman, general cool dude, wrote a great blog post about how people are doing email autoresponders all wrong. Out of his list of five email autoresponder sins, the fifth one has to do with people who are reading their email twice a day. Among other great points he makes, I think Peter’s best point is that if you are not going to read his email for hours, he will do business with someone who will.

I agree. In today’s world with email on every gadget, we get email constantly. We can choose to respond or not, so if you are looking to do less work and have more “life,” you can check email, make sure nobody needs an immediate response, and go back to that low-work life you were living according to that book.

The book itself is a victim of timing. It came out in early 2007 (so it was probably written in 2006). The first iPhone was announced in earlier 2007, and available to you as of June 2007. And then you became a serious email junkie. I already was. I had a Windows Mobile phone picking up multiple email accounts, and making a different sound for each account. Before that, I had a Palm Treo picking up my email all day. Before that, a Palm i705 with an always-on connection to Cingular. Picked up my email all day from it in 2002.

You don’t need to master ignoring your email just like you don’t need to master ignoring your phone or other inbound communications. You might need to learn time management, and deciding which emails get a reply right now, which get deleted, and which can get a reply later. My trick is to leave everything in my inbox until I’ve dealt with it, and to delete anything I don’t need to deal with or save. Forget the Four Hour Work Week. I doubt even the author has a four hour work week considering all the writing, promo, and investment meetings he has. I think it’s just not realistic for anybody other than the rich and famous, and I don’t think they could do it either.

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Paying For A Parking Meter’s Lies

Posted on 23 December 2011 by Debbie

San Francisco has neato computerised parking meters. They have messages on them! They take some sort of card in addition to change. They are very cool!

For my first time in this city, I parked in front of one a few weekends ago. The meter had a message on it that read, “Free Parking – no payment accepted.” It was a Saturday, and I saw no signs, so I figured FREE PARKING! What else could I have assumed from a meter that was refusing – REFUSING – to take my money!

When I got back to my car 12 hours later, I had a $65 ticket on it. This is not free parking, as best as I can tell. The parking meter lied to me. And there was the meter, blinking “Free Parking – no payment accepted.” Something must have happened between A and B.

But wait a minute, this is some sort of complicated Robo Parking Meter with a screen on it and all kinds of information. Why didn’t it tell me that it’s free parking now until x o’clock, but if I plan to stay after that, I’d better start feeding the meter? It should know that. It should be able to tell me that. If you want to be old school, signs should tell me that. Something should have told me that, but I guess the joke was on me.

Congrats to the city of San Francisco. You’re the big winner. I fought the ticket, and you wrote me a letter saying nope, parking was being enforced, and that’s just too bad. I would still want to know HOW I would have known paid parking was enforced, but it’s not worth my time for a $65 ticket. I’ve never had a parking ticket in my life, and the only thing I can do is warn everybody so this doesn’t happen to you. If you see a SF meter that says free parking, don’t believe it. Park somewhere else.

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Schwann’s Email Is Painful

Posted on 19 December 2011 by Debbie

I don’t know how I ended up on the Schwann’s email mailing list, but this is a screen shot of an email I got. Click to enlarge:

Not sure I need to say much here other than FAIL. I’m not going to read this. Not sure who is. Not sure what this is optimised for.

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Reset Your Forgotten Password By Entering Ten Other Passwords

Posted on 16 December 2011 by Debbie

I used to use Digsby as a unified instant messenger. I decided to give it another try, and reinstalled it. I couldn’t remember my login. I used forgot password to try to reset my login. This was the screen I was lead to from a link in a “forgot password” email (click to enlarge, and you’re going to want to see this in full size):

It won’t let me reset my password unless I enter in my password for ten AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, and Twitter accounts. Really? I was using Digsby to NOT have to remember those. I don’t remember those. I have some of those! Not all of those. And I don’t want to go through all of their “forgot password” processes to get those again.

And it’s trying to tell me I SET it to do this in preferences? I don’t remember doing any such thing. And if I had seen such a setting, I would have opted out. Because this SUCKS.

I’ve done “forgot password” probably 100 times over the last decade, and never seen anything like this. UX FAIL. Password not reset. Digsby not used. Might as well uninstall.

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Worst Online Dating Username Ever

Posted on 15 December 2011 by Debbie

I guess I feel badly for this guy because I’m trying to hide his identity… but only somewhat. I logged into OKCupid to find this staring at me on the home page like he’s some sort of featured guy. What caught my eye fairly quickly was his username.

This reminds me of when I try to tell my clients that their logo or slogan is trying to be too many things at the same time. This guy’s online dating username is trying to convey WAY too many ideas that should NEVER be this close together.

Sure, he might be a great Dad! Sure, he might be born in 1969. Sure, he might like the double entendre of 69 since I see it just about every day in online dating usernames. However, let’s please NOT put “69″ after “Dad.” They just shouldn’t go together, especially when you read it as “one great Dad 69.” No no no no no. FAIL.

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FitBit: Watch Me Get Fit and Watch Me Sleep

Posted on 14 December 2011 by Debbie

I’ve been trying a FitBit for a couple of weeks now. In case you’re new to Fitbit, it’s a little smaller than a cigarette lighter. You attach it to yourself, and it mostly acts as a pedometer. But with all the inner workings of a Wii remote, it also understands if you’re going up steps/hills, and you can track activities. You then sync it (wirelessly, which is neat), get some other data in, and there you go: a snapshot of your whole fitness life.

By activities, I mean say you want to go biking. When you start an activity, it starts a stopwatch. It doesn’t really know what you’re doing, so you’ll have to go in later, and say that was biking, and estimate the calories burned. It is not tracking your heartrate, sweat, breathing, or anything else. It’s only $100, and there are way more advanced systems out there should you want more from your tiny biometric device!

And by other data, I mean that the Fitbit website has a place for you to journal anything you want… food eaten, blood pressure readings, glucose readings, mood, allergies, and sleep. Sleep? Well, this is where it gets neato.

When you are ready to really go to sleep, you start Fitbit like it’s an activity. You wear it on your non-dominant hand in a little wrist thing. It’s actually comfy, and you barely notice it. Based on your motion, Fitbit makes decent guesses at when you are “active” and when you’re sleeping. It calculates your sleep efficiency, and can certainly notice night-time issues that you might not. I was wondering if my cat is waking me at the same time every night…

It’s like watching me sleep, but way less creepy! It looks like my cat is NOT waking me up at the same time every night, which means I need a new idea on how to deal with him getting me up at night. I was hoping for some sort of pattern, but it looks like he’s patternless. He’s spontaneous. Ugh.

Note that the above history chart is part of Fitbit’s advanced offering. For $50/yr, you can have unlimited use of their “premium” data and charts. I didn’t sign up for that yet. This was a preview. But evidently, you can really boil it down to, “How often am I eating broccoli” or something like that if you wanted to.

The regular version tracks food in as much detail as you want. It has a food database (not as good as other ones, but I’m sure it’ll get there in a partnership or two for Fitbit), and the database isn’t just calories. It’s the full nutrition panel. So you can see sodium for a meal or the day. You can go as far with this as you want, and I think that’s a great option for anybody with certain health issues.

Fitbit also has the gamification thing going on. You can add friends, you can choose what info they see, and you have a leaderboard. You also get badges when you reach certain milestones.

So far, I like the Fitbit. I’m excited to use it around my Walt Disney World trip in February… how much walking do you really do on a trip like that. I will know! Steps and miles, thanks to Fitbit. Will need to burn lots of calories for what I plan to eat. Hey, it’s my 40th birthday trip, and my best female friend is meeting me there for part of it. So cut me some slack!

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UX Labyrinth: Restaurant.com

Posted on 13 December 2011 by Debbie

Restaurant.com is a great place to get discounted gift certificates to restaurants you like or want to try. I generally like to use it when I can find the right place to eat. However, FINDING that place is PAINFUL.

First, I noticed that they are NOT using the Yelp API to bring in reviews. I can only assume that’s on purpose since I’ve noticed that a good number of restaurants on Restaurant.com don’t have the greatest reviews. So I have Yelp open in another tab, and flip back and forth. If Restaurant.com doesn’t notice a lot of repeat biz, they should go for better places that are likely to make people happier with their dining experience!

Second, searching starts out tough and gets worse. On the home page, you can enter a zip code, or pick one of about 15 major cities. Well, let’s say we want Napa, CA. Not a major city. I don’t know the zip code. I was just going to go there for a night. Now, I have to Google the zip code of Napa, CA since there is nowhere to type in a city name. UGH.

From there, it kind of gets uglier. Click to enlarge to see search results for part of San Francisco.

No map. Right side column of ads for places I’m nowhere near. Mix (2nd one in the right side ads) is in the Mandalay Bay hotel in Vegas. I’m searching San Francisco. Not logical. The sort menu that shows “relevance” has other choices for average entree price and restaurant name. Not sure how they determine relevance other than pushing their featured people at me.

On the left side, if I hit the + for entertainment, I find that two places are karaoke places. I click karaoke. The site takes forever, and then shows me this (click to enlarge):

A bunch of left side choices went away. The right side is still there (useless). Karaoke is now in my breadcrumbs. If I want to take karaoke OUT, and find just the places with pool tables, I have to hit the garbage can next to karaoke. I have to wait for that page to load. Then I have to go back, hit the plus to expand entertainment, and pick something else.

There are many easier ways to do this. I don’t think this site has been touched in a very long time. Restaurant.com has been running a lot of specials lately to sell gift cards. I am hoping they will put that money towards redoing how the site is navigated and used. I’d think that making this easier and faster could contribute to them having more customers. As usual, I offer myself if they need some UX help.