OMG WTF FIX UX

If you’re someone touching the design of online privacy stuff, do not let this happen to you. This absolutely takes my breath away – and not in a #goodexperience kind of way. I *get* the intention but can anyone say over engineered? We went from giving all our data away unknowingly to giving it away out of sheer frustration.

Our policies spill out onto screens so dense that no one pauses to read – nor would it matter if one did. Much of it is unverifiable and most of our days are too short on time.

Our org charts are on every about us page known to the internet but do they actually help us? Some are actually fake and those are before OpenAI gave us Sam Altman or vice versa, I can’t tell anymore. If someone codes an algorithm, isn’t it going to reflect their – everything? It cannot be unbiased and we know that from some of the women who told us.

Strap in folks, we’re headed for some weird times. Don’t forget we’re all here, for each other, there is no god waiting somewhere else for us, it is us, we are that as long as anyone believes this guy knows of ‘god‘. Nope, no fucking way. Not when so many good guys are gone. He – god is always he – is you guys*, how about that?

RIP: Don, Sarah, Scott, CT…

Take cover

Take cover! That’s what my brain told my body sometime after 1am last night. Pop pop pop. I pop pop popped into the interior hallway faster than a startled cat. Before I was awake enough to reconsider the whole situation, I peed and went back to bed. Cat came back onto the bed from his bunker underneath. This morning Reddit reminded me of the incident and confirmed it was fireworks being set off on the corner of the two closest main streets.

One thing I like about living here is the sense of community. We may not all be BBQing and drinking beer together but we’ll be looking out. Especially in my zip code. Still defiant up here on the hillside.

Take cover the bombs and the bullets, take time to heal your wounds.

Welcome to my broken car, it don’t go fast but it goes so far…

Take cover from my own bombs, my own bullets. I am not faring well in this war. The drill sergeant – JFC this guy – is terrible and takes it out on me. I’m no match for him dammit. Never really have been. The outside noise is way too much so he ends up taking over and telling me I know nothing and have nothing to offer and worse, sound like a dumb ass who has no business opening the pie hole. I bet he was even harder on my friend but I’ll never find out more, that friend died too dammit.

Take cover from the shame and the darkness, it’s time to look up, be one with stardust. The reality is, everything is fucking fine. As long as there is still money in the bank after all the bills are paid, that’s pretty much it. I do wish for a steady connection to – however menial – daily tasks that contribute to a system working better for people (aka: a job). But I do not even want to fuck with my LinkedIn or resume or website again.

Take cover in the fog, go wander in the cloud, appreciate the mist on your face, dew on flower petals and spider webs. Can’t buy that feeling. I take nothing for granted here in the 93109.

Mind tricks

The mind, mine anyway, likes to play tricks on itself. It ruminates and says silly things. It can’t absorb that some people are gone. It seems to refuse to believe facts. Death. Now that’s irrefutable.

Can’t believe you’re gone. Hate that I can’t share silly internet things and joke about things no one else finds funny.

I hope you departed knowing how much you meant to so many. I’ll only speak for myself here because you and I crossed paths when I was in a rough place, just trying to come home. I made it back because you had a soft place for me to land. I’ll never be able to express how you likely helped save my life. And that’s not me being dramatic, it’s true, I was so fucked up – still am! – and you didn’t judge, you became one of my favorite people. And I’m here because you were here and now you’re not and I’m just so fucking sad.

(I really did wanna build a tiny house on Big Lou’s property).

The socials are just bad

The bottom line is that social shit in 2024 is bad. All. Bad. It scrambles brains, revises nervous systems and has laid bare the worst of the worst human behaviors. When I extract myself fully, I’m much better off. But when I’m in an ‘active account’ phase, I feel like crap.

Active account phase is what I’ve now come to refer to it as because I’ve created, deactivated, and deleted Facebook so many times I’ve lost count, IG is an original account that’s gone through active/inactive phases, LinkedIn has been in the same mode as IG and the bottom line is: I fucking loathe them all. High school in a pocket-sized computer.

Today I popped into my current FB account and within seconds I felt like a left out piece of shit when I saw post from my first house. Someone had visited the location because it was my parents’ first home together, too. I wished I’d been included in the sharing of a picture of the tiles of the street number. Silly, I know. But I’m feeling lonely, disconnected and raw so it hit that frayed nerve.

My first street address

The real reason it hit the nerve is because I only wanted a little house here in my California location. I didn’t stand up for myself. I let other forces take me on some dumb ride that hasn’t turned out so well. I wish someone had told me it was not wrong to want the things I wanted. And to grieve them now isn’t that fucking surprising. It’s lousy that I’ve let it steal my energy, focus, investment and general level of giving-a-shit but right now that’s what’s happening. Acceptance. It’s what’s for dinner.

All mixed up

I’m ALL mixed up over here. I went back to my usual walkabout route – down past my friend and former housemate/landlord’s house which is so damn sad cuz he’s not there anymore.

Save the bees!

While walking I started contemplating seriously whether/if/how my last name is effecting job applications. After all, it’s pretty Jewish and lately we aren’t exactly everyone’s favorite group. Kidding. We’ve never been a favorite group. Please laugh at that even if it’s only a little funny.

Something I never noticed before

The number 143 is associated with Minot’s Ledge Lighthouse in Scituate, Massachusetts, which flashes its lights in a 1-4-3 sequence. 

This sequence is sometimes called “light language” and is also known as the “I Love You Light” or the “lovers light”. The numbers in 143 represent the number of letters in each word of the phrase “I love you”.

Peek through and there’s the Pacific

The ice cream

All I remember from Monday is the ice cream. Trader Joe’s is trying to kill me. This week it is with their smores ice cream to which I had to add pretzels as dipping sticks.

The hangover is terrible but that never stops me from just mowing through the whole freaking pint like it’s a single serving.

The pint in question

While I appreciate the fact that is kosher, I didn’t need that to confirm why I ate the whole fucking thing in one evening. It’s just so damn good.

Eating the feelings

Sunday. July 21.

Espresso, milk. A lot of it.

Eggs with feta and avocado, English muffin, strawberries and honeydew melon.

Chicken and spinach leftovers.

Plain skyr and the rest of the berries.

Three chocolate chip cookies.

Happiest place on earth

When I see – and smell – a big bucket of tuberose (tuberoses?) at the farmers market on a Saturday morning, everything is right with the world. I’d love for life to be so simply perfect like in the kids books like Ferdinand The Bull. Just leave me, let me just sit and smell the flowers. Today I introduced myself to Tony, one of the people who’s always working at that stand. The farm isn’t too far and they like to have visitors so who knows, maybe I’ll finally do that photo thing – capture some of real life at a working farm – I’ve thought about on and off for a really long time.

Smells like Hawaii

Nothing makes any sense

On Sunday, I got a text from a number that wasn’t in my phone. The sister of a friend. Oh no, I thought and plopped onto the couch while my heart dropped into my feet, my stomach followed. I’d texted him the week before an had a fleeting, uh-oh, when I registered not having heard from him in maybe a month. A couple of taps, an excruciating eight minute phone call with his sister (how many of those did she have to do?!). Confirmed, he was gone. He died on my ex-husband’s birthday, not that that matters, but I noticed the date when I looked online for an obituary. He died on the heels of another friend of mine who went out in a spectacularly gruesome episode, just look at the headline, I can’t write about it.

I can’t make sense of any of this – or much else on this day in July of 2024 – for that matter. A bunch of old dudes and their sidekicks survive and treat the rest of us like shit while good people are dead. Scott, who passed away on 6/30/24, was one of the best people I’ve ever had the good fortune to call friend. He didn’t deserve to suffer and die so soon.

I am glad he doesn’t have to see our country get any crazier. Maybe I’ll hang an American flag in his honor. He used to have one hanging outside his house, at the mailbox on the curb, it was visible to anyone passing by. Folks started thinking he was a Donald supporter which he most certainly was not. Scott was kind, decent, nonjudgemental, among other things, and I defended him and his flag more than once. It’s ours and that was what Scott was about. A Deadhead to the core. I do wish I’d had the chance to let him know how much he meant to me.

I know it sounds terrible but one of the things Scott and I had in common was that we didn’t really like people. We laughed about it many times because we got along so well as soon as we met almost exactly five years ago. I don’t know the exact date but it was July of 2019. Thank you for being my friend, Scott. I hope you know how much you’ll be missed.

One of the bazillion dead songs you knew

Women. Stop asking for answers

You can have anything you want. If you’ve got the wherewithal to send a question to a newspaper, you can get yourself some covers. So why the fuck do you need an apology?

No I haven’t read the column. The clickbait got me cranky even before I clicked it. The whole fucking thing is beyond stupid.

Get your own covers. Forget lame ass apologies. And stop broadcasting dumb shit that makes women look like fucking toddlers.

Anthony Bourdain

So wise.

“Life is complicated. It’s filled with nuance. It’s unsatisfying. If I believe in anything, it is doubt. The root cause of all life’s problems is looking for a simple fucking answer.” 

—Anthony Bourdain

Hipstamatic

Still a favorite photo app even though it just crashed when I tried to grab the specs for these pics. Makes ordinary look lovely.

Red grapes on cutting board
Pink tulips against green tile

Stock photography misses

Sometimes stock photos are obvious and disappointing. Not everyone will notice or care but I can’t help it. Don’t let this generic image happen to your marketing materials.

Photo of a woman looking at camera with laptop, stylish coffee, notebook and smartphone on white marble surface

Jobs

What is wrong with wanting to have a job? I have been an independent business person since before I could work legally. Delivering newspapers, mowing lawns, babysitting little kids and mucking horse stalls. 45 years later it’s business advising, marketing, digital strategy – and implementing all the things. I’m a one person agency again and I’m not happy about it.

I hung that up formally in 2022 for the promise of a role I wanted in a (seemingly) growing company only to find out it was in total bullshit. How could I have been so naive after decades of work? Rhetorical. There’s no good answer.

So, no job. But there’s work. Work to find work. Work to keep a little inbound cash flow from drying up. Work to describe the work. Then doing all the fucking shit.

Not pleased but yeah, I’m grateful. But. What a fucked up state of affairs.

Shoulda been a software engineer.

Truth is in the thermals

When truth is missing, is it really gone? Maybe it’s hiding somewhere in the thermals only to be seen by birds.

Rare Bird, Toad The Wet Sprocket

Hear me, wherever you are tonight.

You’d better be flying high.

Substack

Yep I’m gonna whine about bad UX again. This time it’s Substack.

It’s a double burger!

Check out this craptastico website. it has not one but two hamburger menus. They’re different sizes too. How. Why. Ok I’ll stop wondering.

Two hamburger menus. One website.

And another thing. It’d be great to be able to DO THINGS in the app. But nope. No, you cannot manage your subscription in there.

No. Can’t do that. Not in the app. But where then.

At least tell me where to go to manage my subscription. Maybe even link to it?

Sheesh. Fine. Don’t. Yes that’s sarcasm.

Stay away from the pit

The pit of despair is visible. It’s just below this rickety ass, cobbled together rope bridge. I think I’m in the middle of it. But the bridge is long and the pit, deep.

It’s tough not to think, jump. Just check it out. Maybe the water is fine. If water is what’s down there.

I’m supposed to care about things. I know that. What if I just don’t. And never will, ever again. It’s possible.

Maybe I’ve hit the pit after all.

More evidence

More evidence that no one knows how information architecture impacts stuff. Especially online stuff. I see lists of shit like this almost daily. No rhyme or reason to the order of the thing not to mention the length of the list. It’s a simple rule: 7 plus or minus 2 and it exists because humans don’t have great brains. All of us. Why are phone numbers in the United States formatted the way they are? Because in groups of 3 or 4, they’re easier to recall.

I know information architecture isn’t completely dead but as an information architect in a UX generalist and visual design world I see this failure everywhere.

Don’t believe me? Start looking at lists of things and see for yourself. Start with Tesla’s website, it’s a total failure. Maybe there was a UX pro around but it’s doubtful. And if there was someone with that or another ‘designer’ type title, they missed a huge part of the discipline.

Defiant UX

What might that mean? Defiant user experience. DUX? No. It doesn’t need a clever TLA or new name with a few letters missing. What it needs is to just happen.

If you’re someone who thinks of themselves as a UX designer, a product designer or heaven forbid, a senior product designer or worse, someone using the letters UIUX all together (or UX/UI), pause. Ask yourself why you think that.

If you’re someone who is in the business of thinking of themselves as a person who can and will advocate for the people using a system, relying on a platform, doing a complex task comprised of physical and digital interactions then you might be a UX designer. But my gut feeling is that is not the case.

UX means something to some of us.

Design means something to some of us.

It’s not about the money.

It’s not about the title.

It’s always been about the users. The people who have to use the shit other human beings build and either create by design or by default.

Defaults are usually dumb. Why? Because they’re not backed by real world user data. UX Research? Bahaha if that were a real thing I’d be able to fix my own smartphone or even better customize one. Gimme a tactile qwerty keyboard instead of this wretched touch screen and I’ll believe in UX again.

Yes, it’s hate

I hate Mark Zuckerberg. Genuinely. What I may hate even more are all the people who have indulged this loathsome child. He’s the worst of everything that’s gone wrong in our 30 years of unfettered commercialization of a thing the US tax payers funded.

The. Internet.

I personally can’t scroll on one of his apps for more than 10-15 seconds without being told I need some kinda neck mask, some makeup that makes your skin look like it’s been Botox’d, to be proud of grey hair, to permanently find a way to make hair stop growing grey.

What. The. Actual. Fucking. Fuck. And. Fuck You.

But wait, here’s an ad for SENIORS born before 1974. WHAT?!?!

Jesus Fucking Christ.

There are no financial benefits to being this age. Maybe a discounted movie ticket TEN or more years from now.

You’d think at 56, I should be:

Dead – yes please.

Retired – uh, hello? With what money?

Working – hmm, can’t be at the top of my career game when I’ve either been a) laid off or b) passed on because of how expensive medical insurance plans are for people over 50) or c) ignored not because of youth but because I don’t have the right brands listed on my resume and last but not least d) no dick.

I’d prefer to choose door number one as listed above, given the current state of affairs. But. Barriers to checking out are too many.

All I ever wanted was to live, work, do things – mostly quietly, hopefully with a partner – like just about everyone else. Guess that was a lot to ask for.

I’m gonna end with gratitude. A handful of good friends. Check. Mostly healthy. Check. Family. Yep. But most importantly, my coordinates, the land I sit on saves me daily.

Stop saying trumped-up

It’s actually been annoying me more than I’d care to admit for years. Use a fucking thesaurus. Or maybe a brain cell could come up with another way of saying it.

How about: bullshit, fabricated, invented, fake, unsubstantiated, or falsified?

And I didn’t even crack open a thesaurus website for those. Just used the old, remaining brain cell count to conjure up some alternatives.

Language matters. Words matter. The less the word trump – outside of a card game – gets used, the better off we’ll all be.

Done. Trigger warnings.

The following may contain disturbing language and discussions of suicide. Reader discretion is advised.

I’m. Fucking. Done. Can’t disappear quite yet but that is the moral of the story. I’ve. Had. Enough. Enough what? Enough of this externally imposed life bullshit.

I. Am. Grateful. Yep. I have gratitude. And I’m still fucking sick and tired of slogging through whateverthefuck this is. The good part is my view.

The views around me are spectacular. Doesn’t matter what the weather is doing. Even dense can’t see through it fog is beautiful here.

Just had a flashback to fog in the 413 area code. The smell of cow shit is all I remember.

The rain passed. The fog lifted. The islands are showing themselves off against the sparkle of late-winter light scattering off of the pacific. Maybe all three Anacapa’s are visible.

Either way. Islands or fog. If I have to do this being conscious and alive thing, this is the only place it works.

Paper lanterns

Today I kept myself entertained sane awake interested busy from thinking by making paper lanterns. Sorta – all I really did was burn gas buy stuff at Michael’s. But if putting two tea lights in small bags I poked holes in using a nail counts as making them, I’ll take it.

paper lanterns at sunset

They’re cute, pretty and I like the flicker of the fake candles. Dig the way this Hipstamatic image makes it look like my curtains are about to burn up. Kidding. No fire. LED all the way. Two per bag. One white, one ivory.

Good vibes only.

Audible – and other pathetic things

Somewhere along the line, words morphed, changed meaning and morphed some more till we ended up using nouns as verbs and then we made those verbs meaningless.

Case(s) in point: solution and vision. Both have been co-opted by whoever the fuck and are now consistently used as verbs. Solutioning. Visioning. No. Just no.

Back to what landed me here. Words. Too few or too many have also been a massive problem for the past couple decades of all out tech progress.

When I see messages like this one from Audible, I can see the evidence of huge business issues. The low ‘give a shit’ level shows here:

Audible message with lots of words

This might be called UX Writing cuz it’s 2024 but it screams of management issues. How do I know this?

A few reasons:

1. Audible has been a struggling business since Amazon acquisition. Just do a bit of searching online (aka Googling)

2. Audible’s highest level tech support has never been able to merge my accounts. There are two of them (two records, one database, have some ideas about where, how and when it got fucked up but that’s a story for a different day. IYKYK

3. Audible messages like this one:

Your title’s almost ready Give us a few seconds while we load it to your Library, then refresh the page to start listening.

What? I know people don’t read but when they do, they get confused. Rightfully. This really makes no sense to a native English speaker and is evidence that no one at audible cares enough to make it make sense.

My audible subscription will continue to go through its cycles – resubscribe, cancel, rinse repeat until either I become to broke to afford the resubscribe or when i improve my patience for certain audio titles and wait till the awesome public library system has them.

Recipe #1: democracy’s downfall

The recipe for the downfall of democracy:

Semi-equal parts highly-concentrated wealth, corporate media, outta control antisocial, and algorithm-driven internet

Heavy pinch of redirection via culture war issues

Finely chopped handful of former rights for women sprinkled on top

Using your non gas stove top, on high heat:

Add wealth, media, and algorithms via data centers strewn across the planet and low earth orbit. Heat on high till boiling then bring to a steady simmer

Add the culture war issues and stir occasionally

Simmer until Summer 2024

Serve up hot, family style

Sprinkle additional decimation to women’s rights on top for extra impact

Good luck!

Thank you, Ms. Ross

I don’t really care, I don’t wanna keep my head down, got nothin’ to share, maybe I should put my phone down. I don’t really care if everybody likes me, I just wanna love myself.

I didn’t know I needed to hear this song today. Hell, I didn’t even know the song existed but thankfully, Tracee Ellis Ross talked with Tonya Mosely on Fresh Air and it aired today.

Tracee also shared this: S.H.A.M.E.

Should
Have
Already
Mastered
Everything

The perfect antidote to the news cycle.

Good design is in the details

UPDATE: customer service for the company referenced provided a diagram revealing 2 small screws I overlooked. MY BAD.

Yes it’s a “duh” statement. Of course good design is in the details. I’m having one of those bad usability days because somewhere along the line, folks decided to ignore maintenance as part of the process of creating a product. (No, I’m not about to go off on Boeing. Thankfully I’ve not been touched personally by that predictable charlie foxtrot.)

White, Woozoo globe fan made by IRIS, USA
One of my (filthy) Woozoo fans

I want to talk about fans. I like to sleep with a small fan on and appreciate airflow throughout my apartment. I found this product a couple of years ago. I bought two of them. They’re great, with one BIG exception. The design ignored maintenance.

As you can imagine, after a while, a fan gets a lotta, um, crap stuck to the blades. Vacuuming does a good job early on but years of use means they MUST be cleaned.

The fucking fan is difficult, no, it’s impossible for me to clean, with only my two hands. The globe clips DO NOT RELEASE easily and I’m spare you the rest. It’s pretty mundane stuff but since I wasted a lotta energy and a couple of hours of frustration, here I am venting to the interwebs.

White Woozoo fan, label, product identication label

I loathe finding the constant evidence of our disposal mindset. It won’t ruin my day but it’s ruining the planet. I hate that IRIS USA INC would rather I spend (now) $160 to replace these fans and add mine to a dumpster. Dammit.

Dammit, I said details matter

It’s one of those days. I just saw a link and read: Coach PMS which made no sense to me, at first.

What’s a PMS coach? Why would someone become a PMS coach? Christ do the Kardashians have PMS coaches now? Here I am thinking about cramps and bloating and nausea and bleeding and things I really don’t think Greg can relate to. (Unless he’s a trans man who didn’t have the benefit of blockers, then, I apologize.)

Wait a sec. Oh, PMS, in this case, is an abbreviation for Product Managers (PMs). Guys, get a woman to look at your shit before you toss it out there.

The URL is: coachpms.com

Sorry to rag on this man but it’s been a lotta these for a lotta years. And yes, pun intended.

#IYKYK

Death doula training

Next up, death. Ok sorry not funny but 100% true: no one gets out alive. It’s preposterous to think it’s 2024 and choosing how one leaves this world isn’t a simple concept or easy process. Multiple doctors questioning your sanity, decision making, feelings, wishes and all at a time when the end is near and the goal is to hasten that ending, to make it as comfortable and smooth as possible.

Do you want your loved ones last words to be “it hurts”?

Doubtful.

But in any state in America that has finally made it legal to choose how to end your own life, they have forgotten about that final step and how difficult, painful and fraught it will be. Why make it worse by forcing a human to ingest a toxic mash that will cause them the kind of pain they’re seeking to escape?

It’s utterly ridiculous that medical professionals prefer this to something that would be administered intravenously. I genuinely do not understand. It actually makes me angry. It’s unfair and unnecessary.

Here’s what happens when someone who is in hospice has finally gone through the arduous process of planning the end of their life: they have to orally ingest 100 ground up morphine pills after already having to take other medications that are intended to help ease the process. If those meds can be administered easily via a pill then why on earth would you then force the individual to swallow something so incredibly harsh?

It feels punitive. You wanna die? G’head and do it but we’re gonna make it the worst last moments of your suffering. How the fuck is that humane.

This incredibly loving human had to justify his choices for two weeks to doctors who had very little notion of who he was and one who barely respected the decision to end his life.

I cried all day after watching the film a daughter made about her dad’s last few weeks. His last words gutted me. I can barely hold back tears when it flashes back.

It. Hurts.

To the Timoner family: your gift of Last Flight Home should be required viewing for anyone who thinks about free will. This is what freedom is about.

May Eli Timoner’s memory live on in his children and grandchildren.

Humanity needs more of this

Daniel Schmachtenberger talks. His POV collides with Tristan Harris and Center for Humane Technology. I wonder if they’ve talked. So many things overlap.

“History written by the winners turns into a naive progress narrative where the things that won get measured and all the things that get destroyed don’t. Where was the cost externalized?”

“…study some theory of mind, you won’t find a definition of consciousness that does not require the definition of attention as fundamental.”

Midnights

No not the Taylor Swift album, mine. My midnights have been wide awake, slow, droning and even include the occasional earthquake.

I didn’t feel last nights tiny shake. it was pretty far north plus, different fault lines.

Midnight’s when I wake up if I’m awake. Or when I fall deeper if I’m sleeping. Lately, even TC is snoozing at midnight. And sometimes noon. Maybe it doesn’t matter. But midnights sounds better and more mysterious than middays.

At least today we’re awake and vertical at an AM hour. Not bad. Next thing to try and care about is finding work. Or a golden ticket.

Now what?

Traveling means either racing or wasting time so in Denver last week I wandered through one of those stores where you can get these socks and some water if you wanna drop $40. (At least I wasn’t sprinting for the only flight home)

Socks don’t need to advertise

Right now there’s a lot going on and nothing happening all at the same time. Maybe that’s how it always is and I try to ignore the fact that I have no real control over anything. I can control what I do, how I react to stuff but that’s about it.

For something to start happening I have to do things and I don’t want to. Refer to the sock messaging for explanation. I know I gotta but …

Trinity

Some animals are so extraordinarily special, I can understand why people (with money) clone theirs. I had one such cat. Special. Not a clone.

I had her cremated when she died and have wanted to do something with her ashes that I could wear like a gemstone. But no fucking way I can afford that.

Then I found Buttercup Beads. And this beautiful, one of a kind, Trinity bead has come to life.

Thanks to Andrea Mazzenga for her thoughtful work.

Bead with ashes of my favorite kitty

Love

My moms mom used to say god is love. Seems right. I’m not a believer in a god. No way. There is no one coming to save or smote us. We all have to find the love. Stop the fucking hate. Please. Before it’s too late.

Love. And peace.