Whenever I walk by the frozen pizza section at the grocery store, there’s a good chance I’ll see somebody trying to decide which pizza to buy. Typically, these people are looking at the nutritional info, probably to find the pizza with the fewest calories. And sometimes they get frustrated and walk away empty handed. The […]

About six months ago, there was a bunch of news about how a huge grocery store would be opening a few blocks from my apartment. It’s no Trader Joe’s, but having another option for picking up hard-to-find items can’t hurt. However, after that initial flurry of press releases and articles and interviews, details on the […]

I needed to track a package within a particular web app, and was impressed at how easy it was to find the tracking number. But when I tried clicking on it, nothing happened. The tracking number wasn’t hyperlinked, nor was there a separate button to track the package itself. That’s just lame. If you’re going […]

I’ve seen some really terrible banner ads lately. Here are some of the offending design elements, though I hesitate to even use the word “design” in reference to such junk: – Before and after pictures that obviously aren’t from the same person (that is, unless weight loss pills also give you a makeover and a […]

Pharmacy chains like Walgreens and CVS have gotten very good at automating the process of ordering and picking up prescriptions. But after receiving a recent message saying that a prescription was ready, I realized there is definitely room for improvement. Here is the information that I’d like to see in the automated phone messages or […]

While I don’t shop at warehouse clubs like Costco, I tend to buy a lot of items on a given shopping trip to Trader Joe’s. In fact, I saw an article recently that estimated Trader Joe’s average basket size at around $48. It follows that for every person like me, who buys $80-100 during each […]

For reasons too complex to explain here, I needed to purchase an item from a UK-based website. However, when we tried to place the order, the website said they couldn’t ship the specific item to the US. Confused, I called them up to ask for an explanation. I spent a good 15 minutes on the […]

When I click on the printer-friendly view for a web page, I expect to get a simplified version of the page that will print cleanly. Most sites that offer a printable view do this fairly well. However, some sites add a very irritating feature to the mix: as soon as the printer-friendly page loads, the […]

For a cell phone company, providing coverage maps online is a no-brainer. After all, there’s no point in wasting resources on prospects who don’t live in your coverage area. Cell providers may even require you to provide a zip/postal code before you can browse for phones and plans, to ensure they have service where you […]

The fitness center in my building is pretty decent. There’s usually enough equipment for everyone, and it sure beats paying for gym membership and having to venture outside in the winter. But there’s one thing that really annoys me: some mysterious overlord controls the temperature, and you can’t adjust it. Why not? Because they put […]