Bay Bridge bound

This blog is actually a great idea! A great place to record all the odd UI things I see every day.

The map above is a portion of my weekly trek from Washington DC to Wilmington DE. Most notable is a wide red line labeled "50" running across a little strip of land.

Sometime, not too long ago, a series of highway signs appeared, on Rt. 50 westbound telling drivers, "Bay Bridge bound? 50 is best!" I didn't count, but there are probably 5 or 6 of these things. Huge signs, costing ??? Lots.

As is obvious from the map, 50 is not only best, it is, actually, the ONLY way to get over the Bay Bridge.

We puzzle continually over the motivation for these expensive and seemingly inane signs. They ALMOST make me want to look for ANOTHER way over the bridge. (But I know better.)

Ideas?

Home Despot

I KNOW how to pay my Home Depot bill online now, but it took me a few billing cycles to remember it. It seems counter intuitive to me. Customers need to select WHICH Home Depot card they actually possess and THEN enter their login information. Who knows which one of their myriad cards one has? Home Depot is Home Depot is Home Depot to most consumers one would think.

Screen shot below is the home page. Navigation to "credit" starts you down the road toward bill pay.

Screen shot below is the "Credit Page." See the thumbnails of the various cards Home Depot offers? To move forward to pay your bill, you need to realize that you are supposed to click on your card, the one you have in your wallet. Ah!

Then finally, you can log in!

Nova doors and Norman

Donald Norman had a cute piece in his "Everyday Things" book about cues for how doors open.

Was I the only person who seemed to have no better than a 50-50 chance of remembering when to push, when to pull on the doors going out of the GSCIS areas where our classes were held during Institute Week? The door handles were oddly 2-dimensional in appearance to me. The lack of depth, I think, was what continually confounded me.

Even now, I can't remember the right answer. Fire code.... exit is push, right? Was it that way??

Enhanced Security, Diminished Safety

My partner, Jon, works in Emergency Management. When we became engaged, though I eschewed "ice" on my finger as inappropriate at our stage in life, I DID get "ICE" in my Blackberry: Jon's contact information set up as my "in case of emergency" designation.

Later, for the convenience of having all my work e-mails forwarded to my handheld, I allowed hospital IS to download their protocols to my Berry. This compromise brought with it myriad frustrations, the most annoying of which is having to re-enter my password every 5 minutes or so. This protects data on servers to which I have no access anyway. Ah well.

It wasn't until we were discussing ICE in class last week that I realized the password business is not only annoying, it effectively neutralizes my emergency contact info! So now, I am looking for a semi-inconspicuous way to inscribe my password on the outside of my Berry's black leather case. Not as easy as a post-it note under the keyboard.

Any ideas?