If you’ve ever tried to look up information about a park at the corresponding city’s website, you probably noticed that it’s easy to find out the hours, amenities, and other basic details. However, one important thing tends to be missing: actual pictures of the park itself. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a small image or maybe even a map — but not much else.

Why do park websites contain so few photos? I have no idea. It’s a shame, too, since pictures are the best way to convey the sensory experience of the park to potential visitors. For instance, you could post things like:

– Maps showing how to get to the park by foot, car, or public transit

– Maps of the park grounds

– Pictures of the trees, animals and other natural wonders that are found in the park

– Pictures of man-made amenities like pools and playgrounds

Granted, a park website that shows basic text info is better than not having a website at all. However, investing a small amount of time to take some pictures would make any park website a hundred times better. Or, for an even easier option, ask existing park visitors to submit their own photos, or encourage them to post them to sites like Flickr that you can link to. While this type of endeavor probably won’t be a big revenue generator, it should help bring more visitors to the park. And as a larger number of people get to enjoy all that the park has to offer, the existing investment in maintaining the park will pay off on a greater scale.

While looking at a few stores and restaurants on a popular local business website, I was amazed at the sheer volume of pictures that some of the venues had. In fact, it wasn’t uncommon for the more popular places to have dozens of user-submitted photos, and I think I saw one restaurant that had 50+ images. But as is often the case with user-generated content, the quality of the pictures left a lot to be desired.

On average, the user-submitted photos were blurry and poorly lit. There’s not much you can do about that without hiring human editors to curate them. But smart programming could definitely help prevent another common issue: photos that are simply too small to be useful to the viewer. When it comes to these postage stamp-sized images — where you can barely make out what you’re looking at — local business sites are better off without them.

How do you keep tiny, useless pictures from clouding up your picture galleries? Just set a minimum size for all your user-submitted photos, and automatically reject any pictures that are smaller than those dimensions. Of course, I’m talking about pixel dimensions rather than size on disk, so perhaps the minimum would be something like 640×480 or 800×600. By requiring that every picture meets these minimum size requirements, you’ll ensure that each image is big enough to convey useful information about what a business or its products actually look like. At the same time, you’ll be training those who upload the photos to focus on larger and more expressive images, which should increase the quality of user-submitted photos in the future.

A couple of days ago, I answered a sales call that went something like this:

– Customer: “I got an email from your company and I’d like to learn more about your products.”

– Me: “Sure, I can help you with that.”

– Customer: “What do you guys sell, again?”

After that, I proceeded to repeat the info that was plainly stated in the email that the customer already had right in front of them. I don’t mind helping people better understand our products. But it never bodes well for the relationship when the caller can’t even take the time to figure out who they’re calling.

With this in mind, here are a few tips for sounding like a smart and knowledgeable customer when you call up a potential vendor:

– Know the name of the company that you’re contacting

– Know the product line you want to learn more about, or be prepared to describe the need you’re trying to solve

– Have a list of questions to ask the person on the other end of the line

By spending a few moments preparing for the first conversation, you’ll come across as a smart and savvy customer and will be more likely to get the information you need, while building the foundation for a strong long-term relationship with that vendor.

I recently received a gift that I wanted to exchange for a different version of the same product. The retailer has locations in shopping malls throughout the country, including one that’s only a short walk from where I live. But when I checked the return policy — both on their website and by calling the nearest location — I learned that an exchange would be a lot harder than I envisioned.

According to the company’s return policy, let’s assume you have:

– A new, unopened product

– That the retail locations currently sell

– With the original receipt from one of those locations

Even with all these things working in your favor, you still can’t bring that product back to the store to exchange it for another version of the product, which costs the exact same amount. Instead, you have to call the main office, get an RMA number, mail it back to them at your expense, and wait 4-6 weeks for them to send you the replacement.

Now, I can understand why they’d have more restrictive policies for situations where you’re asking for a refund, or the product was already opened, or it’s an older model that they can’t just put back into inventory. But the scenario I’m describing involves none of those things. Yet the company still makes customers jump through an absurd series of hoops to swap one product for another.

This policy runs counter to how virtually every other retail store works. By violating what customers expect is a basic right of shoppers — the ability to exchange one brand-new product for another at the company’s official retail locations — the manufacturer in question is setting customers up for a huge disappointment. I don’t know if these overly restrictive policies represent a recent change in how they handle returns and exchanges. But I have to believe that it’s going to hurt their sales numbers, especially once their current and prospective customers find out that even the simplest product exchange is a hugely complicated and frustrating endeavor.

Over the past year or so, the website for the health insurance company we use has gotten slower and slower. During that same period, our insurance premiums have risen dramatically. I know that premiums go towards a lot more than just the website, but it’s pretty sad that even this very basic part of the healthcare experience continues to get worse every year.

In virtually any other industry, a glacially-slow website would make customers leave in droves. But in the high cost, low quality world of healthcare, this level of ineptitude is exactly what customers have come to expect. If anyone ever figures out a way to actually fix the US healthcare system — and I’m not convinced that the existing legislation will get us there — then I hope that usable and responsive websites are part of the package.

The labeling on certain prescription medications puzzles me. For instance, I have a skin medication that says the following on the tube:

“For dermatologic use only. Not for ophthalmic use.”

If you’re reasonably familiar with medical jargon, you probably know that the warning means something like this:

“This product should only be used on your skin. Don’t put it in your eyes.”

So, why doesn’t the safety warning just say that in plain and simple language? Perhaps there’s some regulation that requires prescription drug containers to use precise medical terminology. Maybe it’s tradition. Regardless of the cause, the current approach means that people need a relatively high level of literacy and domain knowledge to interpret a warning label. This is clearly not optimal when you’re trying to protect them from using a product the wrong way and hurting themselves in the process.

To remedy this situation, simply replace the jargon-heavy safety warning with the plain-English version. Or, if regulations require that the jargon be on there, add the translated version right below it. By following this guideline, manufacturers will enable a much higher percentage of customers to read and understand the safety warnings. This means more people will be properly informed about how to avoid potentially dangerous mistakes when using those products, which is exactly what safety warnings were intended to do in the first place.

If you’ve spent even a modest amount of time interacting with the tech support and billing departments at any number of organizations, you’ve probably noticed that some companies go overboard when talking about their customer service. For instance, their on-hold message might include phrases like these, repeated over and over:

– “Your call is very important to us.”

– “We apologize for the delay.”

– “Our goal is to ensure your complete satisfaction.”

Now, there’s nothing wrong with using these statements in moderation. People like to be reassured that the company cares about its customers. But if the same types of phrases get repeated in a mindless loop, they lose their meaning.

So, instead of programming your phone system to regurgitate the same messages every 15 seconds, just think about the point in each interaction where you as a customer would be seeking reassurance. Chances are that you’ve identified the very same moment that your customers will be most receptive to a timely and relevant message, too.

Whenever the overpriced grocery store in my building has a sale on basic items like frozen vegetables, I like to stock up on those products. Most recently, this meant taking home a bunch of frozen peas. While putting them in the freezer, I noticed something strange about the package design: instead of just saying “Peas”, the label said “Green Peas”.

I suppose that you can purchase more exotic types of frozen peas, but I’ve never seen anything besides the standard green ones. Sure, you can get small or large versions, sometimes with no salt added. But I’d say that virtually every frozen pea buyer expects the peas to be green in color. Calling them “Green Peas” is rather superfluous, since the color doesn’t add any information that the buyer wasn’t already expecting. For the vast majority of shoppers, “Peas” would be just as effective — and less text means the label would be easier to recognize at a glance.

In contrast, if you’re selling something that’s different than the shopper’s typical expectations, it makes sense to describe those traits upfront. For instance, “Extra Small Peas” or “Peas With No Salt Added” gives the customer valuable information that they need to make a purchasing decision. But when it comes to superfluous adjectives that merely restate the obvious, it’s better to just leave them out.

As part of the new patient forms that you fill out when visiting a medical or dental office for the first time, there’s usually a seemingly innocuous document stating that you agree to pay the fees for services rendered. I’ve never thought twice about that stipulation before, but a recent experience made me reconsider my viewpoint. In particular, an unethical medical practice could use the signed form like a blank check, and insist that you have to pay everything they invoice you — no matter how outrageous the fees might be on a per-service basis.

These “blank check” agreements should be abolished in medical practices. In fact, replace healthcare with any other industry, and the behavior would be considered unethical, and might even count as fraud. For instance, suppose you bring your car in for repairs. Any halfway decent mechanic will give you an estimate ahead of time, and the better ones will guarantee that the final cost won’t exceed the budgeted amount.

In the healthcare industry, though, it can be nearly impossible to get a pre-treatment estimate, or even a bill after services are rendered. Case in point: I had a routine procedure done recently at a doctor that I know and trust. Before the appointment, I called to get the procedure code and estimated cost, and they told me they couldn’t provide that until the day of the visit. Next, when I completed the appointment and went to the checkout area, I asked for the bill, and they told me it wouldn’t be ready until the following day. Finally, I called back the next day, and they said bills take a week to generate, so no costs were available yet. It has now been about a week since I saw the doctor, and I still have no idea what my visit cost.

I doubt my experience was all that unusual, and this is an excellent example of where the government should step in and abolish the policies that lead to this type of abuse. Namely, any sort of “blank check” agreement that the patient signs should be deemed unenforceable unless the doctor also provides a written estimate before each visit, stating how much the visit and all related services will cost. If they fail to provide this estimate, or the patient never signed off on it, then the law should provide a maximum billing amount of something like $50 or $100 for that visit. In other words, the patient would only be responsible for paying large fees if they agreed to them in writing.

Sure, this is more work for healthcare providers. Some patients might even refuse to sign the estimates, although those are probably the same people who would have refused to pay the bill when it arrived. Despite these minor drawbacks, banning “blank check” agreements and requiring upfront disclosure of medical costs is fair for all the parties involved, and it’s a shame that the US hasn’t put those policies in place already.

While looking at an otherwise well-written instruction sheet, I noticed something odd. The instructions mentioned the use of several third-party products, which the typical person would probably have to purchase separately. However, there was no mention of “Supplies Needed” until the end of the document. Thus, someone who took a quick glance at the instructions could easily overlook the other items that are essential to the process at hand, and become frustrated by the seemingly inadequate instructions.

There’s a very easy way to prevent this situation. If the reader needs to locate or purchase third-party items before they can follow your instructions, then start the document with a section called “Before you begin”, “Items you’ll need”, or something else along those lines. If it’s relevant, tell them what quantity of the other products they should procure, and where those products can be purchased. Even better, put the list of supplies on the outside of the product box, or deliver it before the actual product or instructions arrive.

Taken together, these simple steps will help users get ready in advance, while keeping surprises to a minimum. Even if you don’t change a single word on the rest of the instruction manual, a well-prepared customer base will find the instructions more intuitive — and will be more likely to form a positive first impression of your product or service.