Pleasure and Pain » Photography

Photo of the day: Pen Pocket

whitney — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:44:19 +0000

All men carry pens, right? But putting a pen in your pants pocket can be a bit of a pain — it rolls around with your keys, sticks out to one side, the cap tears at the pocket lining.

Sitting next to my friend Nik Agharkar at a dinner party, I noticed him reach inside his suit jacket to grab a pen when the bill came. And that’s when I saw it: the pen pocket.

Forgive me if this is incredibly common and I’m just late to the game. I’m not a man, I don’t own men’s suits, and I don’t have a tendency to look inside many men’s suit jackets. Or perhaps I just don’t know many men who wear bespoke suits. Nik’s suit by Custom Men has this ingenius feature and I just had to snap a pic.

I poked around and found other examples of this:

Peyman Umay:

“Pen pocket is a simple and practical addition to your suit. This is a must have customization option for business men. Pulling a high class pen from a pen pocket to sign an important deal is a great way to display a personalized lining color and to subtly insinuate that you own a bespoke suit.”

A Suit that Fits:

“No more fumbling around in your pocket trying to get a grasp of your Mont Blank (or 4 bic); our fantastic New Product Development whizz, Mighel Critten, has launched a REALLY cool attribute that’ll be put into all our suits for this moment onwards! On the inside of the jacket, next to the pocket, is a small slot specifically designed to hold a pen. This extra feature will now come with every suit purchased from ASuitThatFits.com.”

But of course, this feature is conditional for two user groups: right-handed or left?

Wistful Writer:

“I was thoroughly satisfied, save for the fact that they failed to ask me if I was left-handed: the pen pocket on the inside of the jacket was on the wrong side. … If I were a more patient man who cared immensely about the placement of the pen pocket, I would’ve held the Michael Andrews Bespoke to their satisfaction guarantee. However, the truth is that it’s not all that important to me, and I already felt that seven weeks was long enough to wait.”

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Photo of the day: Negative Floors

whitney — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 21:02:56 +0000

Some buildings label their 1st floor as 1, others as L for lobby or G for ground floor. I’ve even seen it as 0 in European cities where the “1st floor” denotes the first floor above ground level — what Americans consider to be the 2nd floor.

But never have I ever seen this:

Negative floors. Floor -1. I assumed it must have been the basement, but honestly I was too scared to find out. What if I could never come back?

Then upon further reflection I realized that this is actually kind of genius. In an elevator that brings you both above ground and underground, a negative number much more clearly indicates going below the ground floor. It’s smart, but it isn’t standard, so instead of being more effective, it just becomes novelty.

I so wish I could remember where I spotted this gem — if you know where it is, please tell me in the comments! (Israel, maybe?)

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Photo of the day: Follow this line

whitney — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 21:21:12 +0000

I walked into the Barnes & Noble on 18th Street and Fifth Ave the other day, and found something curious. Lines of colored tape along the floor.

As I approached a sales guy for help finding something, I overheard him talking to the gentleman before me: “Just follow the yellow line to the end and it’ll be on your right.” The guy was a bit confused for a moment — you could see him thinking, “yellow line?” — but then the sales guy pointed to the floor and the shopper was on his merry way to the Business section or Biographies section, or whatever the yellow line happens to end at.

The physical structure of the space makes it impossible for a salesperson to point off into the distance and say, “Travel is over there,” because there’s probably a wall or ceiling between here and Travel. These colored tapes prevent each salesperson from having to walk the customer to the shelf they’re looking for, but it does in fact need their facilitation — there is no legend posted in the store to indicate which color goes where.

Most people aren’t aware that the kind-of-crappy, oddly laid out, fairly small B&N on 18th Street is actually the megachain’s flagship store — where it has been open since 1932! The original location was a few blocks away and opened in 1915, but later moved to the smaller location in the Great Depression. The B&N history is explained on Wikipedia, but amusingly their corporate site only starts the history when Leonard Reggio acquired it in the 1960s.

The only other place I’ve seen anything similar to this is at Powell’s Bookstore in Portland, Oregon. The place is absolutely enormous, so they color code each room and use a map to indicate which sections are in which room.

Similarly, I’ve also seen a path of footprint stickers on the floor at the flagship Century 21 showing customers the roundabout way to the adjacent shoe department.

This Photo of the Day is timely because much to my dismay, the Barnes & Noble in my neighborhood (Lincoln Triangle at 66th and Broadway) just shut its doors on January 2. I was there on the last day to help empty the shelves, and ended up buying 13 books. After 15 years in that location, the landlords drove up the prices so high that floundering B&N could no longer afford it.

So what’s taking over its space? Century 21.

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Photo of the day: Brand Transparency

whitney — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:30:15 +0000

Headed back home from Heathrow Airport after a lovely vacation, I stopped at the Pret A Manger for a quick pre-flight bite.

When I got to the cash register, I noticed this awesome sticker — concise, honest, and, best of all, empathetic.

VAT NIGHTMARE

We’re legally required to add on
VAT when you eat in. Nightmare.

They’re legally required to charge VAT (value added tax), but they aren’t required to be dicks about it. Yet most merchants are. The staff feels that it’s out of their control and they’re sick of getting blamed, so they shrug their shoulders and keep it quiet, hoping you won’t notice.

I admire Pret for taking a different route: being upfront, noting it prominently, and identifying with the customer. Now that they’ve set my expectations and repudiate the blame, my distaste in paying it doesn’t negatively effect their brand. In fact, I like them even more now. It’s kind of genius.

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Photo of the day: Visualizing Genres

whitney — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 16:30:39 +0000

Hotel alarm clocks are usually a big pain in the butt. Hampton Inn aims to fix all that — and takes simplicity to inconceivable levels.

They go so far past easy to use and intuitive that they come back around to obscure and pointless.

They visualize musical genres.

Columns for Classical
Stream for Soft Rock
Cows for Country
Cadillac for Oldies
Bleachers for Sports

Now you tell me: if a hotel guest has somehow never heard of these genres, will they be able to deduce their sound via the associated imagery? My guess is not likely. If you can’t read English, I can see how the bleachers and the cows might point you in the right direction…but a stream for Soft Rock?! First of all, a stream doesn’t make rocks soft, it makes them smooth. Second of all, just because “rock” is a homonym in English (meaning both a mineral and a category of music) doesn’t mean it’s a homonym in any other language — so it could easily be mistaken for sounds of water.

What I’m getting at is why would they ever spend the money on this? They had to produce or purchase the photography. They had to custom design and manufacture the devices. What in their minds could possibly be the benefit of all of this cost and effort?

Hampton Inn is so proud of their radios, they even have them for sale on their Home Collection website for a mere 60 bucks.

If any of you have a different perspective on this, I’d love to hear it. I’m simply stumped.

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Photo of the day: The corner of W 13th St and W 4th St

whitney — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:30:21 +0000

For anyone who’s ever been to Manhattan, or perhaps even heard of Manhattan, chances are you know that our roads are based on a grid — Streets are east-west and are numbered, Avenues are north-south and are numbered or named.

62nd Street and 2nd Avenue
106th Street and Park Avenue
1st Street and 1st Avenue

You get the picture. It’s easy to learn, and directions are never needed. It’s probably the most famous grid plan in history.

Then you go to the West Village. Shit’s crazy over there.

It’s roads were paved and named in the mid-18th century, long before the New York State Legislature’s Commissioners’ Plan of 1811 went into effect. The entire neighborhood has a grid that’s offset about 50 degrees from the rest of the island.

West of 6th Avenue, 4th Street and Bleecker Street swing north and essentially become avenues. That’s how it’s possible to find yourself at the intersection of W 13th St and W 4th St. But it’s certainly a usability problem. Even the natives get confused (including me), walking in circles, consulting their smartphones.

But it’s redesign is, shall we say, out of scope.

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Photo of the day: Back in 30 minutes

whitney — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:42:36 +0000

Time has always bothered me; I don’t really believe in it. It’s a human invention, a representation of reality. Now the passage of time, that’s something I can believe in. You can feel it. You can measure it. But it’s always, ALWAYS, relative to something else. Like when you’re in the train station waiting for the train to leave and you don’t know if your train has started moving or if the train next to you is moving — you don’t always have a constant to base it on.

I was at Philly’s 30th Street Station recently, and I was hungry, but I only had 5 minutes before I had to get on the train. I saw the sign for Ben & Jerry’s — perfect, quick.

As I approached the counter, I saw this sign:

Be Back in
30 minutes.
Just milking
the cows and
churning the
butter!!!
:)

While I am a big fan of their ice cream, and their determination to stay on brand, this sign was completely useless.

When did the sign go up? Would the cashier be back in a few seconds, or in the full 30 minutes? Should I stand there patiently, or walk away to find other food?

Ben & Jerry’s signage might be cute, but it certainly isn’t informative.

Social activity streams use a combination of relative time (30 minutes ago) and absolute time (12:20pm). Relative time can be very useful, particularly with short intervals, because it helps us to understand the recency of an event without having to do the mental calculation. But it only works when the system is able to continuously update the indicator with the passage of time.

Unfortunately, a piece of paper taped to a sign does not have this capability.

The jars of toppings on the back counter taunted me, and I stood for a minute or two furiously looking around for someone in a smock and visor. Then my train number was called over the loud speaker, and I sulked onto the train, ever hungrier for a delicious scoop.

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Photo of the day: A man in need of an iPad

whitney — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 16:30:05 +0000

…or a Kindle, or a nook.

I recently spotted this man at a Starbucks in SoHo.

He was clearly settled in for the day, his keyboard propped up against the wall behind him, feet kicked up, book in hand…and in the other hand, a magnifying glass to help him read the damn thing.

That very same day, I wrote my first blog post from my brand new iPad (the day I discovered the new frappuccinos). As I was writing it, pinching the screen to zoom into a webpage, I was reminded of the Zoom functionality in iBooks (represented by none else than a magnifying glass), that allows the user to instantly increase the font size of the book’s text without altering the design or layout of the book itself.

Seeing this man, I felt an urge to start doing user research, as though I were a designer of some e-Reader, aiming to identify his needs, uncover his pain points. But I let him be — surely he loves the feel of the pages between his fingers, and a magnifying glass will never run out of batteries or lose its signal. I think he’s just fine the way he is.

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Photo of the day: Bags on Board

whitney — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:00:36 +0000

My cousins have an adorable Boston Terrier named Luna. She likes to play tug of war, and fetch, and tear her toys apart. And unlike the dogs I had growing up, she also likes to poop outside.

Over the summer my cousins were taking Luna for a walk and I noticed their completely amazing leash.

Made by a company called Bags on Board, the retractable leash has a built-in doggie poop bag dispenser. Imagine: no more napkins or Ziplocks or oversized grocery bags — or worse, having nothing at all!

I mean, it’s no Pooper Scooper, but it sure does save the pocket space and make the whole process more efficient. I find it pretty innovative, and I’m shocked it took this long for someone to invent.

The best ideas are always so obvious, aren’t they?

Cat owners, you’re in luck. They make a litter box scoop with a built-in baggie, too!

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Photo of the day: Penn Station, Charging Station

whitney — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:00:48 +0000

I’ve found myself at Penn Station quite a lot lately. You see, I’m working on the project of a lifetime with Happy Cog Philadelphia, so I visit by train from time-to-time.

A few weeks ago I observed some unusual behavior:

I’ve passed by this column dozens of times when I walk into the Amtrak area from the subway — and I have previously noticed the power outlet at the rather unusual height. But I didn’t think much of it until I saw a guy charging his phone there the other day.

A few things immediately came to mind:

Is it considered “legal” for Amtrak customers to use this power outlet for their own purposes?
If not, what is the purpose of that power outlet?
Is this an example of an opportunity to pave the cowpaths? Should Amtrak recognize a customer need and install a mobile charging station?

What comes to mind when you see something like this?

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