If you aren’t sure how a certain feature works, and nobody else in your company knows, and there’s no way to find out one way or the other, here’s a radical idea: just leave that feature out of the documentation. The same goes for product specs that nobody can certify as accurate. Simply put, it’s […]

For the past six months, my local Target has dedicated an endcap display to foldable utility carts. This sort of thing can come in really handy in the city: you take the folded-up cart with you to the store, unfold it during checkout, put all your bags in there, and wheel it home. And since […]

I’ve been thinking about the time-saving features that I take for granted in everyday products. Here’s a few that come to mind: – The way my BlackBerry remembers which email account I used to send a message, and selects it automatically next time. – The “Cancel” button on laser printers that instantly deletes the job, […]

While reading restaurant reviews online, I noticed something about how I evaluate other people’s opinions of a business. Specifically, I would much rather go to a restaurant or other establishment that consistently rates four out of five stars, rather than one that gets equal numbers of threes and fives. In other words, when comparing places […]

One of my coworkers asked me to look over the contract from a coffee service that we’re considering. We’ve actually had this sort of thing for years, where they lease you the machine and you pay for the coffee that gets delivered every few weeks. But our old provider nearly tripled their delivery fees in […]

I almost made a fool of myself while joining a conference call yesterday. Things started off normally: the automated prompt asked me to enter the number assigned to my call, and then it asked me to say my name after the tone. But instead of the usual “beep” or “ding”, it played a bizarre, almost […]