mypipeline

I’ve already professed an admiration for Richard Dawkins’ no-nonsense approach to a studied life. But I’ve got to say that his latest series on Channel4 (The Genius of Charles Darwin) was a let down. In the last episode, it was disappointing to watch Dawkins’ interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams degrade into an imbalanced polemic rather than discussion. I don’t think it was Dawkins fault either, but the producer/editor of the programme. Dawkins would put forward the evidence from biology and genetics; the Archbishop would fend off the science with clearly unconvincing ‘evidence’ from the Bible. But when Dawkins accused Williams of using poetic language to cover up the cracks in his argument, the interview faded to another scene, leaving the Archibishop’s words drifting off, as if to say that his words were not worth listening to. It just appeared that Dawkins needed to have ‘the last word’ and dismissed the Archibishop in a vain manner. The scene would have had much more lasting impact had Dawkins let Williams dig the religious argument into a deeper hole. It wold be good too if Dawkins at least ackowledged the peace and meaning that religion does afford people who are unwilling or unable to study life in all its complexities the way that he has. His arrogant tone in the films just comes across to bold for so many, and if his aim is to convince religious believers in a different, more analytical approach to the Big Questions, then his television outings are failing miserably.

I turned over to watch Dragons Den afterwards, and was gripped with yet more irritation - just how much superficial padding goes into the edits of these programmes so that they can be flogged to Dave for endless reruns. The actual pitches and responses only seem to now account for around 70% of the show; the other 30% consists of preview takes on something you are just about to watch. Can’t the BBC just make a cut for ad-funded stations and another for its own channels?

No Comments | In: The Bug List | | #

Time to rant

From now on, I’m jotting down more of the things that bug me.

Starting with my Nokia phone’s tiny clockface. Granted, it’s cheap - I am on my fourth this year, the other three suffering watery toilet and bath demises (a long story, which I do not have time to scribble at the moment). But it is, after making phone calls, the next most important thing on anyone’s phone feature list, but Nokia almost always has a default setting of around 3pt Font, stuck in the right corner, with no ability to raise the font size or move the time to the centre of the display, as would be my preferred location. Nokia, get with the program: people need the time in BIG BOLD LETTERS. And of course, all of the sales packaging doesn’t have the time-face printed on the display so you assume that with this new phone, Nokia will have fixed this glaring idiocy. Not this time…

Humax-ed out

Gripe two for the day: the interaction design on my new Humax PVR. Now, I bought this wonder-toy on the recommendations of my fellow shoppers at Amazon. And yes, it’s fast, has plenty of space for content, a zippy loading interface, and one of the most pain-free set-ups that I’ve ever experienced with an ‘AV device’. But though the software is clearly well-coded, the interface design has been clearly hacked together by the programmers, most of which clearly didn’t excel at their ESL courses. When I want to record a programme, I want to press the nice red record button and have it record. Nope. I need to go into the Guide, then press OK instead (obviously). This I discovered after a thumb-numbing marathon with my remote, trying every colour-coded button first and only then stumbling on the least obvious, and most correct option.

Then, when I have recorded a programme, what do you reckon I need to do to watch it? Well, in a blue-skies sort of world, the one button that a PVR should have (next to a working Record button) is one that says ‘My Recorded Programmes’. Nope. Here’s the interaction I have to use (which I still have trouble remembering): press Menu > Record (yes, you read it right) > Recorded Programmes, then select a Programme with OK. But that’s the easy bit. Then, instead of simply exiting the menu area and treating you to your recorded programme, your selection begins playing in the tiny 1/16th screen in the menu area! It took me another three minutes to realise that I had to press Menu again to play the selection full-screen.

Dear Christ Humax, get thee to a IxD firm immediately…

2 Comments | In: Digital Life, The Bug List | tags: phones, pvr, settop boxes. | #

I have been meaning to write a little post about Starbucks’ most recent ‘innovation’. What the hell is MyStarbucksIdea? Basically, it’s a site where Starbucks customers can tell Starbucks about how they can make their shops and services better. On the face of it, some Starbucks marketer’s ’social media’ pet project, but really it’s just a crass exploitation of users’ ideas, and frankly their time too. Puh-lease. Asking your customers for ideas on how to change your product for the better is an age-old ploy, but this isn’t a feedback card stuck on the end of your happy meal. A handy message in the MyStarbucksIdea FAQ page says clearly: “we may give you credit on the site, but we won’t be compensating customers if their ideas are chosen.” That’s not a great way to care and share. It gets worse, though.

A closer inspection of the T&Cs reveals some altogether not-wholly-world-loving aspects of Starbucks’ corporate philosophy:

“The submission of your Idea to Starbucks is entirely voluntary, non-confidential, gratuitous, and non-committal. You understand that Starbucks may be working on the same or a similar Idea, that it may already know of such Idea from other sources, that it may simply wish to develop this (or a similar Idea) on its own or it may have taken/will take some other action. …[you also understand that] the Idea represents your own original work. You have all necessary rights to disclose the Idea to Starbucks.”

Hmm. Ok. So I have an original idea but Starbucks may already have thought of it, and may already be working on implementing it. So thank you anyway, and by the way, please visit us and buy one of our lattes because we’re short on cash [and ideas] at the moment…

I’m certainly not the first to point out this site’s obvious failings so I am not going to dwell on it. Instead, I would like to point to some choice ‘ideas’ that honest cutsomers have been kind enough to give them on the site. [For why this kind of suggestion-box-with-a-vote is a bad idea, Starbucks, surely your marketing team would have been aware of the Chevy Tahoe UGC ad distaster a couple years ago?]

Fairtrade

“My idea is that Starbucks compensate people fairly for their ideas and original thinking. ‘If we implement your idea, we may give you credit on the site, but we won’t be compensating customers if their ideas are chosen.’ reads like exploitation to me. But you can have this idea for free.”

Snots

“Cut your prices in half. Use Small, Medium, and Large as normal people do. Stop being such snots; it’s just coffee.”

Duplicate ideas (I get the distinct impression a programmer wrote this one)

The voting and popular ideas section [on this site] can’t possibly work correctly until you force users to conduct a brief search for existing similar ideas, before they add theirs. Too much duplication.

Ideas cards(from ‘nooooooo’ …)

Try to prevent people who look like they might log onto mystarbucksidea.com with the intention of posting ridiculous suggestions from getting hold of the ideas cards handed out at Starbucks branches. Thank you!

The list could go on and on. I have wasted too many minutes of my life already being mildly amused. As an aside, I would say 30-40% of the ideas are about the site’s poor functionality, usability and speed to load - which is the icing on this particular cake for Starbucks. For a sampling of these ‘ideas’, simply search for ‘this site‘ on the site and read one of the hundreds of complaints…

No Comments | In: Ideas, The Bug List | tags: marketing, starbucks. | #