Brilliant Technology Doesn’t Make Us Feel Stupid

I spent yesterday organizing and digitizing parts of my overflowing collection of analog media I’ve collected over the years. And I came face-to-face with many of the sad side-effects of technology-gone-wrong. Contained in those human-computer […]

The App That Won’t go Away

Apple’s prowess at making technology easy-to-use is unparalleled, but there are some areas where their products don’t live up to the smoothness we expect. For me, iTunes is one of those areas. I had tired […]

Starbucks App Critique, Part 3—Drink Builder

What I think should be the coolest feature of the Starbucks App is the most frustrating for me, and I’m guessing is also the least-used part of the program. It starts off extremely well, with […]

Starbucks App Critique, Part 2

Spending a little bit more quality time with the Starbucks App, I find other aspects of even more frustrating than those I mentioned in the previous post. The first problem I had is part bug […]

Starbucks Complicates iPhone App

I love coffee. I love my favorite Starbucks even more. A nice comfy leather couch with an AC outlet 6″ away, almost-decent Wi-Fi, an oven to heat up lots of delicious things, and one of […]

How not to Design a Library Book-Return Robot

I’m a geek, and I love technology—especially anything that automates boring, repetitive tasks. So I should be a huge fan of the barcode-scanner wielding, German-engineered book-return robot that the Foster City library installed a few […]

The Disappearing Clue

This morning’s software frustration: I entered an address into Google, and it popped up a text bubble that asked if I wanted to share my location, along with a “tell me more” link. Clicking on […]

Smart Phone, Dumb Software

I’ve got my iPhone out, and the Starbucks app loading, ready to “pay” for my refill, when the phone rings. A true smartphone wouldn’t hide this app completely, and then make me relaunch it after […]

Universal Remote ≠ Easy Remote

I spent some time this afternoon helping a retired and widowed neighbor install a new set-top box and reprogram her universal remote. There were several things about this process that troubled me. The first is […]

A Little Hazy on iCloud Setup

The holy grail and cardinal rule for making computer software easy to use is to never leave the user confused. Apple is generally the best at this, but we Windows users sometimes feel like the […]