June 30, 2005 12:05 AM

Broken: Ashtrays on planes

Alexander Moseson writes:

I recently took a Delta Airlines trip on an Airbus A321. The cheesy video at the beginning of the flight said "No Smoking." The overhead lights said "No Smoking." Several other signs said "No Smoking."

Yet there are ashtrays located in the lavatory, and in the aisle above the trashcan, and probably other places, too, for your smoking convenience. I asked a flight attendant about this, and she explained that the ashtrays were left in place incase a smoker had a panic attack and needed to smoke while in flight.

[Note: Picture from an Air Canada flight, taken by a reader submitting a similar entry in 2006. -mh]

June 29, 2005 12:03 AM

Broken: Printer paper warning

Matthew Wagner writes:

There's a little deli on campus here at Bentley, and it's usually pretty crowded. You place your order on a touchscreen station, which prints you a receipt, which you then take to claim your food and pay.

What's broken here is that the receipt printer will detect when it's running low on paper. After every receipt it prints, it prints out another receipt, stating that the "Local printer paper is getting low!" Once it's low on paper, it begins doing this after every receipt, thus ensuring it runs out of paper twice as quickly.

June 28, 2005 04:57 PM

Broken: HomeDepot.com order cancellation

From rangelife: Cancelling a HomeDepot.com order is nearly impossible.

Broken: Stove interface

Saltation points us to the BBC story Deafblind slate 'senseless' tech. Excerpt:

A man who had just bought a new cooker was unaware that the knobs for the two back rings turned clockwise to increase the heat, while the two front rings operated in the reverse direction.

He put some oil in a frying pan on what he thought was a low setting and, while chopping an onion, the pan caught fire because he had in fact turned up the ring to the highest setting.

A bad stove interface like that can cause problems even for people who can see and hear.

Broken: Hotel room warning

Brooks Protzmann points out this sticker, on the ceiling of his San Francisco hotel bathroom. He writes, "My question is, has this happened often? If so, I STILL could not find a hook anywhere in the bathroom."

June 27, 2005 09:13 PM

Broken: (fixed) domain mapping for thisisbroken.com

I got a lot of responses to my June 7 question about domain mapping. You might notice that this site is now at thisisbroken.com.

Thanks to Ed Nusbaum, whose column Domain name mapping is broken at This Is Broken quickly solved the problem. (This column at bloggingbusiness.com seems to offer the same solution.)

Special thanks to Anil Dash for posting the question to Six Apart's Professional Network community.

And thanks to Nep, Cameron, Satya, and everyone else who offered helpful suggestions.

Now, bookmark thisisbroken.com, and on with the show!

Broken: Single-serving food packages

Iris Bell points us to this Washington Post article: But the Dang Thing Won't Open. Excerpt:

I spent 10 minutes in a school cafeteria prying 13 foil lids off single-serving containers of chocolate pudding because, even when kindergartners dropped them on the floor, they wouldn't open. They frustrated fifth-graders, too. The lids were not only tight under assault from my fingernails, they burped pudding onto my shirt as I finally broke each seal.

Broken: Merriam-Webster definition

Mac Davis wonders why the Merriam-Webster's entry for "deflagrate" begins with "to cause to deflagrate".

Mac adds helpfully, "Simply put, deflagrating reactions are chemical reactions between very finely divided fuel and oxidizer particles that explode with sub-sonic velocities."

Broken: Thames Path sign

Dave Lawrence writes:

Here's a picture of a gate on the "Thames Path" (long distance trail along the side of the River Thames). A large, locked padlock can clearly be seen on the left along with a label saying the gate isn't locked! (it goes on to say that the gate is only for wheelchair access and I guess a 'radar key' is maybe some special skeleton key. They're trying to keep horses and probably motorbikes out)

June 25, 2005 10:29 AM

Broken: Many moving companies

Paul Schreiber points us to movingscam.com, which promises "The truth about the moving industry, moving companies, van lines, moving, movers."

Broken: Street planning

Tushar Sonak writes:

Watch out! There is a tree in that lane!

This picture was taken in Nagpur, India.  When the city decided to widen the roads, the horticulture department did not allow them to cut trees...

June 24, 2005 04:04 PM

Broken: Tostitos "better tasting" promise

Ben Phillips writes:

Recently I was eating a bag of Tostitos chips and I realized that they said "Now Better Tasting!" Hmmm, I thought, they didn't seem to taste much better than the last time I ate chips. I have seen this used as advertisement many times. There are two fundamental reasons why this is broken:

1) It's arguing a vague point. It gives me no reason to believe that my Tostitos actually taste better now than they did before. Isn't all food supposed to taste good?

2) Taste is subjective. No matter what they did to change the food, people have different tastes and there's no guarantee that everyone would like the taste better.

Broken: Online commerce

Thanks again to Seth Godin for this week's entries - this week marks TIB's two-year birthday, and the idea for TIB was originated by Seth!

For his final entry in this birthday week, Seth writes:

It's been more than ten years since online commerce started. And it remains a disaster.

Why do I have to remember a password that's different wherever I go? Why isn't there a centralized wallet? Why doesn't one click appear everywhere?

I honestly believe that consumers have been brainwashed into believing that online retail is supposed to be a barely-pasted-together operation that only works on occasion, that's slow and tricky and requires patience and a good memory. With all the money at stake, and all the advancements in open source browsers, it amazes me that we're still at release 1.0 of the online shopping experience.

June 23, 2005 10:59 PM

Broken: Reminder: Good Experience job openings

Not broken... instead, a reminder to all the TIB readers working in the fields of user/customer experience, usability, product design, etc.: take a look at Good Experience job openings in those fields.

Or just get them e-mailed to you every week.

Broken: DC adapters, jumper cables

Seth Godin writes:

I studied engineering in college. I didn't, however, take Electrical Engineering. If I had, perhaps I would understand the following: Why do DC adapters cover more than one hole in a power strip? Worse, why are there so many different types--if I lose an adapter, I can't just replace it with another one from some device I've no longer got. I understand that engineers like the flexibility of using 6 volts or nine or even twelve when they prefer, but that's still only three types. Surely we don't need hundreds of shapes, sizes and jacks? It would actually cost LESS for every DC device to use the same transformer, with a small switch to set the appropriate voltage.

And while I'm on this rant, what's the deal with jumper cables? Jumper cables are medieval. For $30,000, why don't cars include an outlet you can hook a standard extension cord into? And an inverter that allows you to tap AC power if you need to plug something in--like your neighbor's dead battery?

Both cases of broken systems that persist because a plethora of suppliers refuse to momentarily inconvenience themselves while they standardize on a better solution.

June 22, 2005 12:08 AM

Broken: ATM language choice

Seth Godin writes:

Why does my ATM ask me what language I speak?
Why doesn't it know?
Why doesn't it remember next time?

June 21, 2005 12:03 AM

Broken: Amazon box label

Still celebrating our two-year anniversary, here's another post from Seth Godin. He writes: "This is the box that Amazon ships the ipod mini in. What am I supposed to do now?"

June 20, 2005 12:03 AM

Broken: iPod serial number

Today is the two-year birthday of This Is Broken!

To celebrate our birthday, I'm running some posts this week from author and speaker Seth Godin, who originated the idea for This Is Broken. Thanks again, Seth!

Seth writes:

The serial number on the ipod is so small that it cannot be read without a magnifying glass. In addition, it has many more digits than necessary to be unique... apparently, Apple is encoding information in the serial number. This would be simpler if they used, say, a computer database to look up the info based on a simple 6 digit 2 letter code.

June 18, 2005 12:44 AM

Broken: InKline ad

codeman38 sees a problem with an InKline ad.

June 17, 2005 04:40 PM

Broken: It came from Black Background: This is (sort of) broken

Matt Shobe, cofounder of Feedburner, writes that Chicago's IPass site is (sort of) broken.

Broken: Broken: Wine Master

nootropic doesn't like his Wine Master device.

Broken: Footsmart ad

Christopher Bergeron writes:

This is a picture from a Footsmart ad in a Sky Mall on a United Airlines plane. It you look closely it says "right foot" on the right side, and "left foot" on the left side, but the cutouts and the footprints are reversed! Maybe they should call it Footdumb?

June 16, 2005 05:36 PM

Broken: Signs at Coney Island

Alice S. points us to Brian Sack's comments as self-appointed grammar cop. Brilliant. At left: a "crime spree" of misspellings and typos on the famed Coney Island boardwalk.

Broken: Modem box sticker

Erin Meehan writes:

My brother was recently installing cable internet at his house, and we got a self-install kit at the electronics store. We tried using the installation wizard multiple times only to run into one unintelligible error after another. It ended up we had to call the service provider more than once to complete the installation.

On the box, there was a blue sticker that said "Install it today!" I peeled the sticker off to see what was printed on the box underneath that they felt they needed to cover with the sticker. It said, "Install it yourself, it's easy!" I wonder who made the decision not to go with the printing on the box, but instead to print up stickers and cover it up. :-). Did they finally realize it just wasn't easy, and they better stop pretending that it is?

At left, see image of the box - with sticker moved away from its original location so you can see what was printed underneath.

Broken: Pop-up ad

Stan Miller writes:

Visited a site today and got a popup ad -- for popup-blocking software. This is as fundamentally broken as somebody breaking into my house to sell me a security system, or kicking my teeth in to sell me dentures.

June 15, 2005 02:19 PM

Broken: Box of "Trout" apples

Neale McDavitt doesn't like his box of apples.

Broken: Gym weights

Chris Clark writes:

The machines at my gym come from several different manufacturers, each of whom mark the weight differently: some just numbering the plates, some labeled in kilograms, some in pounds -- though there's no way to tell which is which. The two machines pictured are identical except for the weights and are right next to each other in the same gym, but there's no way to translate between them. It's guesswork, and for anyone trying to keep track of their progress it's a nightmare. A bad user experience all round.

For what it's worth, my guess is that the machine on the left uses plates that are ten kilograms each, and the machine on the right measures in pounds... meaning these two machines are set at roughly the same weight right now.

June 14, 2005 12:14 AM

Broken: Audiovox receiver

Joshua Wood writes:

I have an Audiovox brand Sirius receiver. This receiver features 10 preset buttons with 3 separate storage areas for a total of 30 preset stations. What's broken is the layout of the remote.  The 0 button is no where near the 9 button - it's actually at the top center.  What ends up happening is I begin flipping channels running through 1, 2 etc, and wind up at 9 then I need to move my hand up and try and find the 0  button.

What normally happens is that I either mute the radio or turn it off, since all of this flipping is happening at 70MPH.

And say you hear an ad for channel 160...  to type in 160, you first need to hit the blue button then 160 then the blue button again.  I would prefer for the remote to always function like a standard TV remote.

June 13, 2005 12:09 PM

Broken: Broken: coffee machine

Neale McDavitt doesn't like his coffee machine.

Broken: Google URL change

When people ask me for more resources, I often cut-and-paste links to my past newsletter columns. The fastest way has been to Google the name of the column and cut and paste the URL from the results page (as shown in the screenshot at left).

The resulting URL used to look something like this:

    http://www.goodexperience.com/blog/archives/000021.php

Recently, though, Google changed the results page so that now the links start and end with some Google tracking data, nearly doubling the length of the address. It now looks like this - too long to paste into an e-mail unless I manually edit the URL:

    http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=3&q=http://www.goodexperience.com/blog/archives/000021.php&e=9838

I imagine that this change helps Google "enhance the service" by tracking where people click on the results page. However, I'm not yet clear on how this is an improvement for the user, the person doing the search. The exclusive commitment to the user experience is what made Google the success it is today; does this change (however small) show a lessening of that commitment?

I'm a fan of Google and would like to be educated why I'm wrong... please discuss!

-mh

Broken: Discovery Channel book spelling

I found this in a neighborhood bookstore just a few weeks ago. This Discovery Channel "Insight Guide" to the Turkish Coast has one little problem: the book's title is misspelled! The cover shows the correct spelling, "Turkish Coast", but look at what's shown on the spine: TURKSIH COAST.

June 12, 2005 12:01 AM

Broken: Anti-photo policies

Anti-photo policies in public areas really annoy me. (The recent policy on the NYC subway comes to mind..) The only people it affects are law-abiding citizens who wouldn't do anything wrong with the photos; given how small cameras are now, the Bad Guys are still free to take as many pictures as they like.

Boing Boing links to this heartening story: Photographer grills security guard about dumb policy.

June 11, 2005 12:07 AM

Broken: easyjet confirmation

Claus writes:

When shopping online with easyjet, you're met with the attached large pop-up asking you to double check your data and warning you that this is the LAST chance before purchase.

BUT: The pop-up is a modal dialog, so while you're looking at the warning you can't scroll through your data to verify your purchase details. You have to abort, recheck, and try again.

June 10, 2005 11:15 AM

Broken: (fixed) CNN poll choices

Robert Stribley points out the "worst CNN Quick Vote ever".

Fixed minutes later. Fixed version, today, is at http://us.cnn.com/.

Broken: Web forms that can't accept dashes

Why do e-commerce sites always say "no dashes or spaces" when you're typing in a phone number or credit card number? Isn't that something that could be fixed by, I don't know, a computer? It's just lazy programming to say that on a Web form.

Thanks to Sumana Harihareswara for pointing me to the "No Dashes Or Spaces" Hall of Shame.

Broken: Unfortunate bus photo

This bus ad advertises "Nadine in Date Land." Well, given how strange her headshot looks, she might be there for awhile!

(It's just for fun, folks - the open window on the bus distorted the photo.)

June 9, 2005 01:04 PM

Broken: Florida State Parks icons

Ed Madigan points out all the tiny little un-labeled icons in the Florida Online Parks Guide.

Broken: Spamalot ad

In honor of the new Broadway musical "Spamalot" winning three Tony Awards a few days ago, I thought I'd point out this erroneous bus ad. The ad promises "witches", which are totally absent from the show.

   "How do you know she is a witch?"
   "She looks like one!"

This favorite scene of Python fans is not in the show.

But I did see Spamalot a few months ago, and it's a good show. So nothing's very broken here. I figure they designed the bus ad early on, when the script included the witch scene, and then the witch scene was cut later, after the bus ad was in production.

-mh

June 8, 2005 04:36 PM

Broken: Symantec phone support

CNet's Charles Cooper on Symantec phone support, and how it turned him into a "psycho-in-the-making."

Broken: (note: contagious media)

Note - today is just about the last day for peekin' at lickr, which is kinda a best-of of past TIB entries.

Broken: Mall shoe shopping

L.K. writes:

My daughter will wear only one style of shoe right now... she is 19 months old and getting fussy about such things.

So we drove across the blank suburban landscape to the big department store at the huge mall, and got her fitted for the next size in her required style. So far, so good.

I wanted two pairs. The store had only had one pair. Sorry.

Did they offer to order another pair?

No, they did not.

So I asked if I could order another pair, and this is what the saleswoman said: "it will be an $8 delivery charge, delivered to the store. or check back to see when fill-in orders come in."

Uh, yeah, right... I'm going to pay an inconvenience fee, and/or keep driving across the suburban expanses of nothingness hoping, hoping, hoping that someday the shoes will come.

So I went home, went to Nordstrom's online... and the shoes arrived at my door a few days later.

The big stores just sooooooooo don't get it...

June 7, 2005 09:12 PM

Broken: (question for TIB readers) Domain mapping at TypePad

Update: This is fixed, and here is the solution.

Original post follows.

- - -

Quick question for TIB readers: is anyone out there a tech genius, with lots of experience, at setting up domain records? I'm looking to create a new spinoff site for This Is Broken and I need...

- for the domain to point to the typepad page without revealing the typepad address (i.e. instead of forwarding to the typepad address, as thisisbroken forwards to broken.typepad.com)

- ...and it's a (secondary) bonus if the person also knows about setting up group blogs, in the manner of boingboing or metafilter.

Get in touch with me through the regular submission address, broken at goodexperience dot com. And describe your skills, experience level, and if you'd volunteer your services or if not, what you'd charge to do some set up work on the spinoff site.

thanks ..

-mh

Broken: Unreadable print ad

Speaking of light gray text on a white background, I scanned in this print advertisement that I've spotted in two major publications - The Atlantic and The Economist - this week.

This SUV manufacturer is paying a LOT of money for what's actually a two-page spread in these magazines. The only problem is, the whole ad is light gray text on a white background. Which means you can't actually read what the ad is saying, or what it's about. But that's what all the cool designers are doing, right? Wow, what a kewl waste of ad money!

June 6, 2005 12:04 AM

Broken: Stop & Shop signage

Bob Sifniades writes:

These signs are posted at the Stop & Shop supermarket in Ringwood, New Jersey. [Both IN and OUT doors are subtitled, "Please use other door."]

June 5, 2005 12:05 AM

Broken: (not really) water shut-off

Fernando Corrado writes:

I was driving down Balboa in Granada Hills, CA.  Had to stop and snap a quick pic of this. I didn't know the shutoff was in the middle of the street.

[Not broken, necessarily - but definitely a "hmmm" picture! -mh]

June 4, 2005 12:05 AM

Broken: Blogger spellcheck

Alex Yoder writes:

I was recently writing a post for my weather blog when I came to the end to check my spelling. The very first thing that they said was spelled wrong was BLOG. Wouldn't you think a Blog site would have the word blog correct on their spell check? I attached a screenshot.

[Note: this submission came in a few months back, so let me know if Blogger has fixed this in the meantime. -mh]

June 3, 2005 12:52 PM

Broken: American Airlines "Why You Fly" contest

Jack McCall writes up his bad customer experience as a winner of American Airlines' "Why You Fly" contest:

On American’s Web site, a ticket to Chicago costs approximately $200 including airport taxes. Yet, if I were to use one of these vouchers to fly to Chicago, I would be required to pay income tax on $2200. This could amount to approximately $1000 out of my pocket in taxes for a ticket worth $200.

Broken: Tutoring sign

Irene Fulton sends this in from near Toronto, Ontario:

Just a fun submission for you of a picture I took a couple of months ago. This misspelled sign ("TUTOURING") caught my attention. I blocked out the name of the tutoring office, and their phone number. Apparently the sign company made the mistake and took two days to come and correct it.  The owner of the tutoring office was mortified when she saw her sign after it was delivered!  (And due to the metal mesh over the letters, she couldn't correct it herself.)

Who knows, they may receive more phone calls with the error than without, but the folks who call aren't likely to need help with spelling!

June 2, 2005 06:16 PM

Broken: Form instructions

Thanks to Jim Hutchins: what's wrong with the instructions on this page?

[Small, I know, but easily corrected. -mh]

Broken: Amazon's "Kids & Family" list

Kat writes:

I was browsing Amazon for stuff to add to my wishlist, and I noticed that apparently Amazon thinks that Grand Theft Auto 3 is a "Kids & Family" game. Yes, it's #6 on the Kids & Family list of PS2 games.

Ahh, yes. GTA3 instills traditional family values, such as how to find the optimal spot to hide on a rooftop when you have sixteen guns and a rocket launcher, or how it's important to kill a hooker so that you can get your money back.

[I understand that lots of people like this game - what's broken is that Amazon is listing it in a Kids & Family list - which I really don't understand. What if a parent, who knew nothing about the games out today, was looking for a gift for a six-year-old PS2 gamer?    -mh]

June 1, 2005 12:03 AM

Broken: Flash fascism

Dmitry Nekrasovski points out a marketing communications company called McMillan that has the following get-lost message on its website for those rebellious users that don't use the latest version of Flash:

"We've detected that you simply aren't flashy enough to view this site. Please download the latest version of Flash so that you too can view the site that has changed the lives of millions of people forever."

Funny thing is, the company's slogan is... "McMillan listens."