Ah hello, may we come in madam, it's the police. I'm PC Smith and he's PC Jones. Yes, you can take the chain off. Oh, and the other one, my that's a big bolt. Thank you, cosy in here! Tea, don't mind if I do. Don't worry about the batons and body armour - standard … Continue reading Reverie on the difference between perceived service and actual service
In the 21st century, few consumer services follow a neat linear model of awareness, consideration, purchase and use. Instead we see a web of customer expectations and perceptions where little things can make a big difference. It's the job of service designers to cut through the mass of insight to find the decisive moments where … Continue reading The unexpected moment of truth: Disney’s $100,000 Salt + Pepper Shaker
Chris Heathcote's abstract pointillist Powerpoint toolkit once again reinforces the received wisdom that Microsoft's near-ubiquitous presentation software presages the end of civilisation. Unlike the army of total Powerpoint rejecters, Chris' solution is to fight pixel with pixel, subject to three strictures: POINT ONE: Presentations are about IDEAS, not TEXT. POINT TWO: READING from SLIDES is … Continue reading All this rubbish Powerpoint must be telling us something
A few years ago when we extended our house to create a new entrance hall we greatly enjoyed flicking through the relevant pages in Christopher Alexander's "A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction". So much of it rang true with those "oh yeah" moments as we looked with fresh eyes at the way we used our … Continue reading The Waist-high Shelf
I loved this post pointing out that "You can't move in London without someone giving you the news". It struck a chord with me - first because of my own interest in how the way we get the news has changed, yet stayed the same, but also because this seems to be a particularly London … Continue reading Can’t turn off the telescreen
The conversation in our household goes like this: Me: I'm clearing the digital camera. Its memory's nearly full. My spouse: I don't like the idea that all our photos are just on the computer. Me: Well they're safer there than in tatty envelopes under the bed... Spouse: Yes, but why can't we print them all … Continue reading Relax, your photos are in the sky (but I’ve burned a CD just in case)
Maybe it's just me, but as we enter the latest phase of convergence with more and more big web properties moving onto mobile, I've noticed a trend for work in progress to be developed and presented mainly on PC screens. In my (possibly mythical) golden age, presentations and design reviews were stacked full of phones … Continue reading Paper – Scissors – Phone
A football agent being interviewed about the negative impact of his profession on the game was asked, shouldn't negotiating be left to the players' union, the PFA? Well, he replied, the PFA are nice people, but they're mostly former players, not businesspeople. If I was buying a house, I wouldn't trust a bricklayer to do … Continue reading Caveat emptor
Unlike some people, I'm partial to a spot of anthropomorphism, which is why I was delighted to receive this email after ordering some cards from Moo... Hello Matt I'm Little MOO - the bit of software that will be managing your order with us. It will shortly be sent to Big MOO, our print machine … Continue reading Remember, I’m just a bit of software
The payphone has bluescreened... ... the departure board has 404ed... ... the giant TV screen is somebody's Windows desktop... Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! Since posting my three broken technology pictures, I've been suffering the blogger's equivalent of what the French call "l'esprit de l'escalier," and for which German has the … Continue reading Sous les pavés, la plage
The payphone has bluescreened... ... the departure board has 404ed... ... the giant TV screen is somebody's Windows desktop... Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!
On holiday in Cornwall this summer we visited Polperro, a Cornish fishing village so archetypal that it featured in Ptolemy Dean's BBC programme The Perfect Village. As the programme synopsis says: On the surface, Polperro looks as if it hasn’t changed for centuries, but in fact it exemplifies a delicate balance between the tourist village … Continue reading Polperro
It's been a while since my trusty work-issue Compaq Tablet PC gave up the ghost, and I'm finally getting around to writing about it. We'd been together more than three years, the TC1000 and I, and the day the man from IT pronounced it dead (a motherboard issue, apparently) it felt like a bereavement. A … Continue reading RIP my Tablet PC
Is this door with the sign that says other door the other door or is the other door that doesn't say other door the other door? Originally uploaded by mattedgar.
News that GNER, my financially-challenged intercity train operator, has just achieved a Charter Mark for excellence in customer service, has prompted me to reflect on a peculiar scene that's played out nearly every time I travel with them. There are many things I love about travelling GNER compared to other UK rail operators [if anyone … Continue reading Gee Any Arghh
Matt Edgar writes here 