To take advantage of the unusually mild weather, my wife and I made the trek up to a neat little nature center north of downtown. One of the main attractions at the facility is an enclosed butterfly habitat, which houses something like 1,000 butterflies at once. We brought a camera along to capture some of the sights, but this proved to be much more difficult than expected.

Apparently, the butterflies — many of which are native to tropical climates — require warm temperatures and extremely high humidity to survive. As a result, our camera lens fogged up immediately, and no amount of cleaning it or moving to a cooler part of the room would help. Short of bringing an underwater camera enclosure, there would be no way to get decent pictures in the room.

Since taking pictures is a big part of any trip to a zoo or other nature exhibit, the facility operators should make an effort to inform customers about any factors that might get in the way of this. Ideally, that information should be disclosed prior to the point that you purchase a ticket. By setting the proper expectations upfront, customers will be able to make an informed decision about whether they still want to pay for admission, and fewer people will feel like they overpaid for an experience that left them with an album full of murky photos.

As I walked through a nearby park a few days ago, I noticed a sign that seemed quite funny. Placed near a sidewalk and a large grassy area, it read “No golf practicing allowed.” I immediately started to wonder: has this actually been a problem? Have rogue golfers been tearing up the grass or launching balls through the windows of the adjacent buildings? Apparently, the answer is yes, or the park managers wouldn’t have bothered putting up a sign.

However, I think that simply scaring the golfers away is missing out on an opportunity. After all, these folks are so desperate to find a place to practice that they’ve tried to use a park that doesn’t have so much as a driving range or putting green. And the mini golf course about a half mile south of there clearly isn’t cutting it.

With that in mind, the park managers could build out a small golf area, charge admission, and turn it into a profit center. Or, they could start referring people to the nearest full-service facility and work out a revenue sharing deal. Either way, it’s a little silly to just tell people that a recreational activity isn’t allowed, without giving them any pointers on where to go next. By investing a little bit of time to understand and meet their needs, you can provide a valuable added service, and generate incremental revenues in the process.

Last Saturday, the city hosted a series of ridiculous events for St. Patrick’s day. As a result, there were thousands of extra people lumbering through downtown and generally acting like idiots. No problem, I figured: I would just avoid going where those people would likely congregate, such as bars and restaurants.

So when I went across the street to pick up some prescriptions at the pharmacy, I was a little surprised to see huge lines of people wearing green and holding cases of beer. Apparently, the most popular time to get ready for the parade was 15 minutes before it started. I managed to squeeze through the crowd and pick up my items. But it surely wouldn’t have been a fun experience for anyone who actually wanted to buy some regular food items, like milk or cereal.

Watching the long lines at the store made me realize that there’s an easy way to address the problem. If you’re the type of store that doesn’t normally have an express checkout lane, then it makes sense to designate one or more express lanes during any special events that attract huge numbers of people. The express lane could either be used to handle those with only a few items, or it could be used to funnel everyone who is making purchases in a given category, like beer and wine. Or, you could make a special line for people who are members of your loyalty program, which probably skews towards regular, repeat customers. No matter which method you choose, the express lane approach should result in faster transaction times for everyone during special events, which is ultimately a good thing for random drop-ins and regular shoppers alike.

While passing through one of the underground walkways that connect the various buildings in my neighborhood, I noticed a curious series of paper signs on the wall. Each sign indicated that you could reach the commuter train station by walking in the specified direction. The signs also contained the logo for some big trade show, perhaps because attendees were staying in a nearby hotel and would want to take the train to the convention center.

However, there was a problem with this seemingly helpful signage. At a minimum, the arrows were pointing the wrong way, since the fastest route to the train station involves heading in the opposite direction. Or worse, the arrows would take you to a series of doors that are labeled as going to the train station, but always seem to be locked.

No matter how you look at it, the informational signage was actually providing the wrong instructions, and probably made things worse for the trade show attendees who followed those directions. At the same time, the trade show organizers look bad by putting their name and logo on the incorrect signage.

What’s the takeaway here? If you’re going to lend your name or logo to a piece of informational signage, be sure to double check that the message on there makes sense, and actually provides some value to the viewers. After all, it’s human nature to blame the messenger. If a message is helpful, people will think highly of you. But if the message ends up making things worse, say by sending them on a wild goose chase to a train station that doesn’t exist, then they’ll blame you for wasting their time.

Living in a big city like Chicago, you quickly become familiar with the best ways to catch a cab, which vehicle types to avoid, and so on. Another basic rule: whether you flag a cab or schedule one in advance, it’s assumed that it will be your own private cab. In other words, that cab won’t be stopping to pick up other passengers on the way to your destination.

However, this rule doesn’t seem to apply outside major metro areas. For example, I arranged for several cab rides during a small town trip earlier this year. Each time, the cab was either filled with other people before I got in, or it stopped to pick more up along the way. And each time, nothing was said to me about sharing that ride with others.

Obviously, I understand that this sort of shared ride arrangement may be the only way to make cab services viable in smaller metro areas. However, that doesn’t excuse the cab companies from having the common courtesy to tell you that you’ll be sharing your trip with other people. By disclosing this information upfront — at the time you make an advance reservation or flag a cab down in person — customers won’t be caught off guard when the taxi fills up with a carload of other passengers.

Setting up recurring orders for groceries and other consumables can be a big time saver, but it seems like the subscription services I’ve seen are missing out on some obvious enhancements. For instance, let’s say you are signed up to receive a case of cereal every six months, but you’ve typically been running out sooner. As a result, you place an extra order every three months, in between the scheduled deliveries.

Based on this ordering behavior, the retailer could easily crunch the numbers and suggest that you change your delivery interval to once every three months. Similarly, if you’ve been buying a particular product manually, they could use the data to recommend signing up for a recurring order instead.

In short, all it takes is two orders of the same item for the store to begin building a meaningful order history. By using that data to suggest appropriate subscription sign-ups or modifications, a smart retailer can save customers time, while increasing the scale and consistency of their recurring revenue streams.

My local pharmacy recently went through yet another remodeling. Even though the store is only two or three years old, the powers that be have already shoehorned in a big grocery section, raised the shelf heights, and most recently, replaced most of the registers with self-checkout kiosks.

However, the self-checkout transition has created an awkward merchandising issue. Like most pharmacies, they have always offered a dizzying array of chewing gum, candy, and other impulse-buy items right at the checkout area. But when they closed many of the checkout counters and replaced them with kiosks, the impulse items got left behind.

In other words, there’s a wide selection of traditionally impulse-oriented products stacked below a bunch of signs directing customers to the self-checkout area. Aside from a few confused stragglers, this area gets very little foot traffic. Accordingly, I suspect that sales of gum, candy and related products have dropped considerably since the changes were made.

Ideally, the store would find a way to move those impulse items closer to the actual point of sale, which in this case means the self-checkout kiosks. Or, the items could be placed in a central location that’s clearly visible no matter which kiosk a customer chooses to use. Either way, it makes little sense to keep impulse items stranded in an area that customers don’t frequent. By moving these products to a location with greater foot traffic, sales should track a lot more closely to the good old days, when shoppers could always count on finding impulse buys right next to the checkout line.

With many people using a laptop as their primary computer, there’s an ever-growing selection of stands and docking stations designed for making laptops feel at home in various environments. Some of these accessories provide a nearly foolproof ledge or tray that prevents the laptop from being knocked onto the floor. But others leave a lot to be desired.

For example, I’ve spent some time with a folding laptop stand that seems ideal for travel and quick setup and take down. It even has a rubberized area in the middle to prevent the laptop from sliding off. At least that’s the theory, anyway. In practice, the rubberized material wears off in normal use, meaning that the slightest nudge on any edge of the laptop will knock it right off the stand.

I don’t know what sort of lab testing is performed on the typical laptop stand, but perhaps the manufacturers are missing an obvious requirement. In short, any decent laptop stand should be sturdy and grippy enough to keep the computer securely in place. If a little nudge here or a little slide there makes the laptop plunge to the floor, then the design needs work.

Sure, it may be challenging to create a stand that will securely hold all the different models out there. But it’s probably better to fix those issues upfront, before hordes of customers start knocking on your door and complaining that a $20 stand ruined their $1,000 investment in a shiny new laptop.

Many people live in apartments. The vast majority of those apartment dwellers own a bed. Beds require sheets, and sheets need to be washed. Yet not every set of sheets will fit inside the compact washer and dryer that you typically find in an apartment.

Why is this a problem? In short, there’s rarely any way to tell if a given set of sheets will fit a compact washer and dryer. I ran into this problem a few days ago, after comparing a set of new sheets to a set of older ones. The new ones took up at least 50% more volume than the old ones. Knowing the existing set was already a tight fit in our apartment-size washer and dryer, I immediately sent the new set back.

There’s really no excuse for this lack of proper messaging. The folks who manufacture or market the sheets should either test them in a compact washer and dryer, or compare their weight and volume to a reference set. Then, based on the results, add a line in the specs that says something like “Fits any washer and dryer” or “Not suitable for compact washers and dryers”. By conveying this simple piece of information prior to purchase, fewer customers will end up with sheets that are too big for their washer and dryer, and return rates should drop significantly.

Let’s say you walk up to the front doors of a business, government office, or any other place that you expect to be open during the day. Unfortunately, the doors are locked. How frustrating would you find this experience to be?

Although there may be several factors at play, chief among them is whether the venue has posted their official hours near the doors. For instance, if the place is open on a seemingly random schedule and doesn’t state their hours anywhere, it’s probably only a mild surprise that they would be closed when you stopped by. 

On the other hand, if the hours are permanently stenciled on the window, the venue has basically made a promise and then broken it at the same time. They’ve stated very clearly that they should be open, only to disappoint you by doing the opposite. In the process, they’ve eroded whatever confidence you may have placed in that business.

The solution here is quite simple: if you’re going to make the effort to display your hours in an official way — like printing them on the door or posting them on your website — then be sure you stick to that schedule. If your hours change or there’s a special circumstance preventing you from observing them, then post the relevant info in the same place the original hours can be found. And if sticking to a fixed set of hours isn’t your thing, just be upfront about it. By telling customers to call or check with you before they make the trek to your place, you’ll save them time and avoid needless disappointment.