adam bondurant

There are certain usability patterns that one would think would be in use almost universally across the Web in 2008. Unfortunately, pagination is one of those patterns that companies just can’t seem to get right, and I really can’t understand why.

Retail shops seem to be big offenders when it comes to pagination issues. Piperlime, for instance, not only chooses to use 11px fonts around its site (that’s damn small, kids), but their pagination looks like this:

Piperlime Pagination

I scaled down the image a bit, but the thing to realize is that the click target for each (single-digit) page’s link is about 5 pixels wide by 11 pixels tall. The “>>” (next page) link is double the width with a click target of 10 pixels by 11 pixels. That makes each page’s target 55 pixels, and 110 pixels for the next page link. In case you’re not with me yet, that’s an extremely small target, considering that on a 1024×768 pixel display, you’ve got 786,432 pixels to work with, so each link takes up .006936% of the screen (.013987% for the next page link) Try to hit that without really trying. If Piperlime’s designers had added CSS padding of 5 pixels on the left and right and 3 pixels on the top and bottom, they would’ve increased the click targets of each numbered link to 255 pixels (15 x 17), and 340 for the next page link (20 x 17). Just by doing that, they would increase the click target for the next page link by 309%, and by almost 464% for each numbered link!

This might sound like I’m just being a nag. Please trust me when I say that your users appreciate the little things. This is not a huge change, nor a revolutionary change. But it’s a welcome change, and it’s thinking about these kinds of usability decisions that will keep me and other like-minded consumers buying from you versus your competitors.

A few days ago, I bought a new dining table for my house from IKEA. I took it home, opened the box and tried to begin putting it together, but it was clear that each of 24 different screws needed to hold four brackets in the sides of the table just would not go in all the way. I think I got one of them in about half way, but I would’ve had to strip each and every screw in order to even try to get them flush against the wood.

Frustrated, I came to the conclusion that I really didn’t want a table that could not be properly assembled, especially given what I had spent on it (it wasn’t a cheap $50 table), and decided to disassemble what little I had put together and take it back to the store. I had been forewarned this experience might not go well, but didn’t really know the correct way to handle it without just going in and seeing what would come of the return process.

My first conclusion is that if you’re going to return a piece of furniture to IKEA, make sure you take everything apart, including taking out the cam locks. I couldn’t fit two pieces of wood back into the box and, unfortunately, those two pieces had cam locks and the clerk noticed that right off the bat. She asked if I had put together the furniture and I told her I hadn’t (realistically… I had put together about 10% of it before I decided it wasn’t worth it). She went back to talk with her manager for a bit, came back out and told me that although their policy is that once you put together a piece even a little, they won’t return the item. This flies in the face of the return policy listed on the back of my receipt (depending on what your definition of “unused” is), but I was glad they were “letting it slide.”

The next oddity was that although there was a large sign posted behind the woman telling me that money given through returns would be given in the form it was originally paid (in my case, debit card), I was paid cash. That’s not a complaint, but I just didn’t get why they would go out of their way to put up a sign, then do something different.

Finally, I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t think I’ll be buying any furniture from IKEA anymore, unless it’s in the range of $20 - $50. If I had cracked the wood at all while trying to force in one of the screws on my table, I’m sure they would’ve poopooed my returning it on the grounds that they couldn’t sell it. My argument is that they shouldn’t be selling furniture like that in the first place, especially for the price I paid. If it’s going to be a painful — if not impossible — process to install the furniture, either drop the price considerably or let me return the item without batting an eye. Your customers will appreciate this, in the end.

I’ve never been wholly political, but something in me changed a few months ago. I think it wasn’t until I stopped thinking about politics as one person winning while another loses (my choice being the loser so many times) and started thinking about it as America winning as a whole that I really began to love the process.

Last night brought out so many emotions. I sat at my house with my friends, watching the networks call the election, watching Obama speak: There are few times I’ve been prouder to be an American. Reading the news this morning about the international reactions just confirms everything I feel. People are overjoyed. I’m overjoyed. We’re back on the right track. Life is just… good.