Good UX / Bad UX

I was at LL Bean today, and was trying to figure out what the difference was between RELAXED FIT and NATURAL FIT. I wasn’t quite sure what they meant by “Relaxed”, but then I realized it didn’t matter, because they used the same term for both.

They defined RELAXED FIT as:
“Loose through the hips and thighs”

And they defined NATURAL FIT in the exact same words, except instead of calling them LOOSE, they called them RELAXED:
“Relaxed through the hips and thighs”

So which one is MORE “Relaxed”???

The answer can be found in their wordier explanations on their website, even though they STILL use the word “Relaxed” to describe each:

FYI: I bought the Natural Fit.

OK, I’ll admit it. There’s a swimming pool just around the corner that this sign actually refers to. But the juxtaposition of the sign’s location and text made me smile.

Here in Massachusetts, we’re not too picky about how we label our highways.

For example, 95 North is also 128 North, going West, and 93 North is also 128 South, going East:

At this intersection, if you take 3 North, you are also taking 2 WEST and 16 EAST. If you take 3 South, you are also taking 2 EAST and 16 WEST:

And because of the fish-hook shape that State Route 28 takes, there’s a section of it in Orleans, on Cape Cod where 28 South goes Due North!

I noticed this a while back, and wondered when it would change. Many years later, it still hasn’t.

When you print a stick-on label, it makes sense to cut the corners curved, as this makes it easier to remove from the backing AND harder to accidentally get peeled off after you stick it on something.

When companies (mostly charities) started printing address labels as “gifts”, they continued to cut the corner of the PAGE OF LABELS curved, but not each individual label. Some most of the address labels have four perpendicular corners, and four per sheet have three perpendicular corners and one curved corner. WHY HASN’T ANYONE FIXED THIS YET?

OK, there’s Good UX, there’s Bad UX, and, well, there’s just Weird UX. Or maybe file this one under “Unfortunate UX”.

Half.com seems to have a censor filter, and it seems to think that Alan Cumming’s last name is a dirty word, and so it appears as censored (in both the title & the Author field).

Oh, myyy.

The good news is that at least in the Synopsis text, it says:

“A star of stage, television and film, as well as a singer, writer, director, producer, activist and author, Alan Cumming made his acting debut in the early 1980s and has gone on to become one of the most recognizable faces in entertainment today. …”

I wonder how many people looked at this and thought that this was the best way to ask a Yes or No question.

This is a clever sign in a liquor & wine store in Provincetown. The same four letters can spell “OPEN” or “NOPE.”

You click on “Send”, of course!