From what I can tell, the holiday music played in stores falls into two categories: classic versions of the songs, and modern re-interpretations of them. In an effort to be more hip and trendy, some stores pummel shoppers with R&B and hip-hop versions of the holiday hits, which strikes me as a huge mistake. Let’s […]

My wife told me about a podcast where they were interviewing the author of a new book. During the interview, the host asked the author for the website where people could find more info about the book. The author thought about it, and admitted that she couldn’t remember the address. That’s just stunningly bad. No […]

Ever get stuck in an elevator where a bunch of passengers are going up one floor or down two floors? It’s not hard to see how this puts an extra strain on the elevator system, which is arguably optimized to ferry people all the way from the lobby to their desired floor, and back again. […]

As a rule, if the vast majority of your customers need to accomplish a certain task with your product, they shouldn’t have to use anything labeled as an “advanced” feature when doing so. In other words, popular tasks should be streamlined and easy to complete, reserving the “advanced” or custom features for customers who have […]

In downtown Chicago, buildings spend some serious money on holiday decorations. My apartment building has a big Christmas tree in the lobby, but it’s nothing compared to what I’ve seen in the office buildings nearby. Those places put up trees that must be 15 or 20 feet high, along with wreaths the size of a […]

While dining out last weekend, I noticed something that I’ve probably seen dozens of times before, but never really thought about. Namely, some restaurants purposely design their menus to stand up on the table, rather than laying them flat. In my case, this treatment was reserved for the dessert menu. The server brought it out […]

When a box weighs a lot, it typically comes with some type of text or graphic to warn you about its weight. For instance, the side of the box might say “Heavy – use caution when lifting”, or display a picture of two stick figures lifting the box together. Do these warnings work? I’m sure […]

It’s been years since I owned a car, and I couldn’t be happier about it. The endless saga of buying, cleaning and repairing the car really eats away at you — not to mention accidents, vandalism, and other stuff that’s beyond your control. I certainly have less stress living a car-free lifestyle in the city, […]

In a large residential or office building, it’s not uncommon for the building management to sign exclusive deals with vendors. For instance, there may only be one cable or satellite TV company that has the right to provide service to the apartments or offices inside a given building. Whether this is good or bad for […]

Whenever I try a new brand of wine, I pay attention to the type of cork they use. I’m certainly no wine expert, so my interest in the cork is purely a functional one. In particular, synthetic corks are a pain to get a corkscrew into, and can be nearly impossible to remove from the […]