Mike Altman | Personal ramblings and adventures

A Proposed Design Pattern

Last night, a group of my friends got together to watch the Pats game. It came time to order a pizza. As the new owner of an iPad, my friend opted to order the pizza using an online ordering service. As a user experience geek (even on the weekends) I rolled my eyes as it took 40 minutes to place the order. I didn’t say anything since I can appreciate the novelty of being able to order without having to pick up the phone.

Beyond novelty and potential incentive through deals, what can these services offer the user? Certainly there can’t be any utility in making the order process take longer than just a phone call. It’s nice that you can have an account and not have to type in your credit card or address every time you order, but is that worth the effort of having to step through an order process wizard?

What is it that makes ordering food for delivery different from ordering a book on Amazon?

• There are likely to be several end users
• It’s a service and not just a product

How do several end-users pay for a single service? Sure, you could distribute cash, but out of a room full of people what percent of them carry cash. Furthermore, what percent carry small bills?

Here we have a common problem, with a tool that can offer a unique potential for a solution. Let us split the bill and tip during the ordering process.

Ugh, can’t you just picture the size of the credit card entry form and the complexity of splitting the bill evenly? What would such a design pattern even look like? The first thing that came to mind was the way Mint handles this. It’s ugly, complicated, and you have to keep track of each iteration within the split.

Ok. I’ll just jump right into my sketch of what I think this interaction should be like.

The thinking here is that the user sees a slider of the entire amount due. The assumption is that the primary user has an account / is logged in. Every time the user clicks ‘Split +’ the slider bar splits the total evenly, and adds a user to the table. Clicking on “New” or “New Card” will bring up a modal dialogue for credit card information without the user having to leave the page.

The user can use the slider to move the amount for each card in either direction. In the case of more than two cardholders, there will be two points on the slider that the user can move. As an alternate, the user can click on the value either along the slider or next to the credit card list and manually enter a value. All other values will update on exit of text box.

Sir / Madam
Park your bike so it doesn’t take up 1/2 the bike rack

Sir, Done and Done

You Rock

With the weather getting better, I have seen new bikes popping up at the bike rack in the office building where I work. One day, one such bikes was locked up horizontally, blocking the bike rack so that no one could park there. Upon seeing this note on your bike after a long day of work it would be easy to be angry, frustrated, violent, or profane. Someone decided to be nice. Problem solved. Who said bikers were inconsiderate?

This past father’s day weekend my mom and I participated in the Quechee Hot Air Balloon Festival. When my mom called me up a few weeks ago to see if I would go up in a hot air balloon with her (because my dad opted out), I decided that I had to do it. Not because it’s something I’ve always wanted to do, but more as a pre-emptive bucket list crossing off. It’s defiantly one of those things that I could see myself adding to my “do in my lifetime list.” Since it hadn’t occurred to me, I figured I could cross it off before I got that internal hunger later in life… and why not! I mean it was clearly on my mom’s list. Who’s to say I can’t inherit the desire to fly over the earth in a wicker basket tied to a giant blowtorch and balloon?

[simage=289,288,n,left,] We took off, and cheering fair goers cheered. In a blink of an eye we were flying high over Quechee, VT and the famous gorge. Our pilot/captain/basket-master? was a short Richard Dreyfuss like guy. Apparently he drives all over the country with his balloon like a gypsy following balloon festival all summer long. Am I the only one who thinks that’s kind of odd? I guess he’s found a way to make a living doing what he loves, but who grows up thinking of that a viable option for a career and lifestyle? Apparently there is a whole sub culture of hot air balloon fanatics out there walking among us.

We flew over houses and roads. people came out of their homes and cars to look and wave at us. Dogs barked and cows mooed at the weird basket of people tied to a balloon floating in the wind overhead. There is something peculiar about looking down into back yards to see people looking up in wonder and waving. It’s like we just walked through their yards said hi and just walked away. [See all of the photos]

We landed with the aid of the flight crew in some guy’s back yard, as his wife stared in awe from the window as we floated in gently next to her flower patch. Random cars with families stopped and helped us pack up the balloon… and like that we were gone. Like we just played some practical joke on the world. I’m still not sure what the punchline was.