When the weather is nice, a lot of retail stores and restaurants leave their doors propped open. I’ve never asked anyone why they do this, but I imagine the idea is to make the venue look more inviting so that more customers walk inside. But does leaving a door open actually increase foot traffic and […]

A friend of mine held a garage sale recently. Like many people, he put an ad for it on Craigslist. This makes me wonder: would the results be better if he advertised it on a site like Freecycle too? Of course, Freecycle is designed for giving things away for free, rather than selling them. But […]

My company recently changed email providers, and we ran into some hiccups during the initial setup process. The issues arose outside of the email provider’s product and definitely weren’t their fault. However, they could have made the migration process a lot easier by providing tools to help us test the new setup. What’s more, the […]

Despite all the talk about listening to customer feedback, the features that paying customers use most are often the most stagnant parts of any technology product. While these core features languish, other aspects of the product benefit from fresh design thinking and vastly better usability. What separates the forgotten features from the ones that get […]

When booking a hotel room in a city that you’ve never visited before, you can encounter many types of sticker shock. The price may be very high, the room may be small, and the only bed available may be a double. To you, these issues might be significant. But to someone who travels there a […]

Many stores seem to be including coupons on their receipts these days. The goal, of course, is getting shoppers to return during the next few weeks so they’ll buy more products. Typically, these coupons take the form of “Get $5 off your next purchase of $30 or more”, or something like that. However, I saw […]

On Saturday, my wife and I decided to try out the new location of our favorite breakfast place, which just opened a few weeks ago. As we placed our orders, the waitress mentioned that we could swap out the usual toast or pancakes for an order of french toast. I haven’t had french toast in […]

Have you ever completed a task on a website and tried to view the updated information, only to find there’s no record of the changes you just made? This happened to me with an airline reservation: after I selected my seats, it said the changes were confirmed. However, when I viewed the itinerary right after […]

Between birthdays and family visiting the city, I’ve had the good fortune of eating at the same amazing Italian restaurant twice in the past ten days. The first time we ate there, our meal included a surprise pre-appetizer snack, plus an after-dinner drink — all at no charge. Obviously, we were surprised and delighted, as […]

In Chicago, the corner of Michigan Avenue and Chicago Avenue attracts an incredible number of tourists. It’s home to the famous old water tower that survived the great fire, with lots of stores and other attractions nearby. And on the southeast corner of the street, there’s a Walgreen’s. It’s a really ugly, old store — […]