Nancy’s Blog

The DMV is almost too easy a target, but I can’t resist. Some usability problems are so incredibly dumb, it’s hard to believe.

Missing from the logo repro’d here is what appears just below it: “Save time, go online.” Well, it’s only a time-saver compared to the hours you sit there without an appointment. (When I last went in without an appointment, it took at least an hour, probably much more; I didn’t check the time when I arrived.)

Their online reservation system: Pick a location and they’ll tell you the first available appointment. Only. Beyond that, you get to play “Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button?” (remember that game?) without the “hot” “cold” clues.  Want a different time? Fine. You pick a time and they tell you if it’s available. Friday at 2 in Oakland? Nope. Friday at 4? Nah. Friday at 2 in El Cerrito? Hah! Monday at 9 in Walnut Creek? Try again!

This morning, after I went through this for three different locations and finally scored an appointment, I clicked on the button to reserve it — and was told the system was down, come back later.

Adobe Photoshop Express has gone online — a free product from Adobe. I haven’t dug into it to see what it does and doesn’t do. The reviews that I’ve seen aren’t crazy about it. It’s designed for rank amateurs. It interfaces with some online photo sharing apps, and at least one review said it will work with Flickr soon, although other reviews say it’s not as good as Picnik.

It also offers a variety of sharing options, including emailing, building one’s own online “Gallery” hosted by Adobe, and embedding or linking photos hosted by Adobe to social networking sites and blogs. There was an uproar about the terms of service and ownership, which Adobe says it’s rewriting.

What I find interesting is that these online editing tools may make more sophisticated photo editors and, eventually, photographers of people who don’t know that much about photography by offering them such functionality as exposure compensation and white balance. If it does make posting and sharing easier, then it’ll encourage more of that, too.

Like other Adobe apps, however, the documentation is terrible, and the app is definitely not self-explanatory to its supposed target audience of people who’ve never used Adobe. Adobe’s big Achilles heel is its documentation, with usability not far behind.

Today’s news coverage of the Olympic torch run in San Francisco has made a big deal of the protests, of course, but also of the torch run: interviewing torch carriers, talking about people who planned their vacations around the torch run in SF — even people who had flown in just for the day, for the torch run. And no, they weren’t all Chinese-Americans.

In 2002, when the torch for the Salt Lake City Olympics came through Oakland, I went to see it, and the story was very different. I had trouble finding out the route — not because of security concerns, but just lack of PR. I went to 51st Street in Oakland, and hung around with a handful of people, waiting for the torch. When it came, it had a small escort, and again only a handful of people watching. There was a handoff from one carrier to another near me, and both, as I recall, were developmentally disabled people.