Stuck in an elevator...

I was in the elevator of a friend's condo in Yaletown, on my way down to ground level. The elevator stopped at the 19th floor and a lady rushed in, used her fob, pressed P1, and instead of hitting the button to close the elevator doors, she hit the alarm button by accident.

The elevator stays on that floor with the doors wide open, and of course alarm goes off. I stood there and thought, 'Oh great. I'm going to be stuck here all day!'. The phone rang in the elevator and after awhile the elevator was moving and we were on our way down.

I looked at the elevator button panel and realized how easy it was for her to make the mistake. The button to close the elevator doors was right next to the alarm button. Anyone who was in a rush would have easily pushed the wrong button. Why in the world would you put the alarm button so close to a button that a lot of people push?!

The developer you ask? I think it was built by CP. Talk about bad design...

American Express

Last night, I witnessed what I call "user frustration". A friend of mine picked up his mail and opened a letter from American Express...

"Congratulations! You have been pre-approved for an American Express card!"

My friend groaned and exclaimed,

"What the...I already have an American Express card!". He shook his head and proceeded to the shredder, "...Don't they know that?!"

I laughed and read the rest of the letter. It contained some private information so I understood why he wanted to shred it.

"What a waste of money, paper, AND my time!", he stated as he continued to shake his head.

It must be frustrating to realize that a company just doesn't take the time to check their records or to ensure their mailings are catered to a customer's individual needs. My friend didn't want to receive that letter. He wanted to be notified of other things pertinent to him as an American Express cardholder.

So, I thought I'd take it further and asked him, "...so how does that make you feel?" He looked at me exasperated and said,

"Like I'm unimportant as a client and customer... like I'm just a name or a number... and now I don't have a very good impression of American Express anymore, thats for sure!

Gmail

So I've been using my Gmail account for awhile now. Its a great concept -- grouping each message with its replies and displayed as a thread or conversation; tons of storage space so that, in theory, one would never have to delete an email; and of course, no pop-up ads.

Gmail is great! I can send and receive large emails (photos, video clips, large design-related files, etc).

However, right when I hit "Send" to send a large file, I can't tell whether or not Gmail is still in the process of sending, or if my browser froze. I keep staring at the word "Sending..." in the right top corner highlighted by a red box. There's no indication that its still sending or whether the browser or site has frozen.

There needs to be some sort of indication of progress, perhaps a progress bar or even an indication of how much, in percent, has been sent.

Ok, so maybe I'm a bit anal here... Anyone think this annoying? ;)