Note — — 68 words

Technology — User experience

I have a problem with cutesy copy, particularly when it comes to error messages. I understand that they are trying to be friendly and personable, but it’s usually not what the user wants or needs. Often, a friendly error message just leads to more confusion.

Dialogue box: "Well, this is embarrassing. Firefox is having trouble recovering your windows and tabs. This is usually caused by a recently opened webpage."

Take Firefox’s “well, this is embarrassing”.

I was once asked for advice about this error message.

“Should I be embarrassed?”, I was asked.

Article — — 388 words

Culture

My name is Duncan and I am interested in fonts. Against my better judgement, sometimes I blurt out this fact, and people run a mile. But is it becoming acceptable? Simon Garfield’s book, Just My Type, would make it seem like a perfectly normal interest. Though there is a nod and a wink towards the […]

Article — — 325 words

Culture — Current affairs

Outrage has broken out among pedants everywhere, as it was revealed that Waterstones has dropped the apostrophe from its name. Waterstones is hardly the first business to make this move. For instance, Woolworths was, up until the 1980s, called Woolworth. But people called it Woolworths, so the company adopted it. Note how many people also […]

Article — — 817 words

Technology

Google has never quite worked with social media. After buying Blogger, it never seemed to know what to do with it. Then there were the high-profile flops Google Buzz and Google Wave. It was tempting to think that the mighty Google had lost touch completely while Facebook and Twitter gain more ground all the time. […]

Article — — 629 words

Technology

Is there anything more annoying than those security questions you need to login to certain websites? I cannot understand how they are supposed to make websites more secure. I understand that passwords can be cracked and the security question is a safety net. But let’s face it. All the advice on passwords is that they […]