If you’re a regular visitor to a certain store, it’s easy to tell which customers have never set foot in there before. These first-time shoppers walk through the door slowly, stop in random places, and generally look rather confused. Some stores put a lot of thought into the “decompression zone” just past the doorway, so […]

Over the weekend, I updated my Southwest account to include the extra info for the TSA SecureFlight program. The idea is to ensure that the name, date of birth, and gender that you give to the airline match up exactly with your driver’s license, passport, or whatever other identification document you present at the airport. […]

The following scenarios have a lot more in common than you might think: – You decide to try an online grocery service, so you visit their website to get pricing info. Each delivery is only $4.99. Your time is worth way more than five bucks, so you buy the week’s groceries online. – You arrive […]

While walking through a busy Trader Joe’s on Saturday, I found myself in a conversation about whether the store is a better deal than places like Jewel-Osco. As anyone who reads this blog could guess, my answer was an overwhelming “yes”. I told the new shoppers about how I save at least $100/month versus any […]

When you’re designing for the web, perhaps the most basic rule is to make hyperlinks look different than the rest of your text. Some people take this too far, and try to think up new and often ridiculous visual treatments for their links. Blue and underlined suits me just fine, thank you. Even worse than […]

It’s happened to all of us: you go to the store to buy a specific product, only to be greeted by an empty shelf. What do you do next? You could ask a sales rep if they have more in the back, or seek out a similar item elsewhere in the store. However, I believe […]

I was looking at some things on the Target website, and decided to add them to my cart. However, I didn’t plan to buy them that day, but instead, sometime later in the week. Would the site save my cart for that long? Who knows. So I did the logical thing: I tried to print […]

I often hear certain cities described as great places for “foodies” — in other words, they’re chock full of great restaurants. In the US, this list would arguably include big cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco. However, you rarely hear about how expensive the food is in those locations. Take Chicago, for instance. […]

Whenever I stay in a hotel, I’m amused at the ridiculous prices associated with the minibar items. Granted, nobody’s forcing you to buy them — but I’ve noticed a disturbing trend of trickery and deception with these products. For instance, the hotel might: – Use an automated switch system to charge you for items you […]

While visiting Vancouver last week, I had the opportunity to ride the Canada Line train from the YVR airport to downtown Vancouver. This was my first experience with Vancouver’s SkyTrain system, and I came away quite impressed. Here are some of the things they’re doing right, along with a few areas where they could improve. […]