

Designers should be arbiters of truth - Mr. X of American Airlines - whalesalad
http://dustincurtis.com/clear-war.html

======
brandon272
This post is a bit whimsical for my taste. The author seems to imply that it's
the job of a designer to rise above the ordinary requirements of their job and
insert some kind of politically-charged influence into their day to day work
and their interactions with non-designer co-workers, based on what they feel
is good or effective design, even if it does not align with the broader
corporate strategy.

As for the gift card anecdote used in the article, it doesn't take a good
designer, or even a designer at all to realize that "hiding" a customer's gift
card balance, or making it difficult to access, is an underhanded thing to do.
I think it has little to do with design and more to do with a company's
culture and true relationship with their customers.

~~~
unalone
The suggestion in the article seems to be that only designers are noble
people, which is a bit silly.

------
bradgessler

      In the end, the gift card idea evaporated as quickly as it
      was conceived, so I didn't need to stand up and object to 
      slimy tactics.
    

Did anybody else think the ending was anti-climatic? Mr. X was, "standing up
for the truth," but he ended up not standing up for anything because the
project got canceled.

~~~
MichaelApproved
I felt the exact same way. When I read that part the whole thing just sounded
so pretentious.

He doesn't even say why it evaporated. Maybe someone else in the company
actually _did_ say something.

------
natfriedman
"Arbiters of truth" ? Smug self-righteousness and self congratulation seem to
get a lot of upvotes on Hacker News.

~~~
unalone
Are you surprised by that? This is a site sponsored by an organization that
looks for elite people in order to sponsor them as they start businesses. As a
result, a large part of the crowd here consists of people who either think
they're elite or who want to learn _how_ to be elite.

Combine that with the fact that computer people have a tendency towards being
smug/rude/insecure, and you have an audience that's drawn like a magnet
towards anything remotely congratulatory.

~~~
natfriedman
Good point.

And some degree of overconfidence and maybe hubris is perhaps _necessary_ to
start a company and to suffer the slings and arrows of that experience long
enough to have a shot at success.

Channel that kind of energy into creating something useful, and you can do a
lot of good in the world.

So it comes with the territory. But the self-applause can get a little
monotonous when there isn't also interesting new content.

~~~
unalone
_And some degree of overconfidence and maybe hubris is perhaps necessary to
start a company and to suffer the slings and arrows of that experience long
enough to have a shot at success._

Absolutely. And I'm the worst of the lot. When I work on anything, my ego
swells to a level that has to be experienced in person to be believed. So the
hubris is a good thing.

As you said, where it goes wrong is when that ego forces itself upon topics
that aren't work-related.

------
seldo
So Mister X's implication, in context, is that American Airlines' website is
so deviously and incredibly terrible not because they're incompetent, but
because they would rather you didn't use it.

Having been a customer of AA before vowing in disgust never to let them take a
penny from me ever again, I surmise that the hidden plan here is to make you
call their customer-service agents to book or change your ticket, since you
can't work out how to do it on the website. At AA, calling them to book means
a $35 extra fee on top of your ticket.

So that's it? They have the worst website in the industry just to screw their
customers for a lousy $35?

~~~
gaius
I'd be willing to be Ryanair and Easyjet have the same strategy. They want you
to call their premium-rate numbers.

Any savvy traveler knows, the "budget" in budget airlines refers only to their
operations, not the final price you pay once all the fees, transfers etc are
tacked on.

~~~
Kliment
They hate people calling them. It's a terrible experience. They want you to do
everything on their website, and go out of their way to make it difficult to
contact them directly. Ryanair is notorious for charging for absolutely
everything (Checkin fee? Seriously? Like you can opt out of that.)

~~~
forensic
If you do online checkin and don't check any bags...

~~~
Kliment
There is still an "online checkin fee", which is lower than the "real life"
checkin fee, but it's still there. I maintain you can't opt out of checking in
when you fly.

------
dkarl
Mr. X points out how they make money off people who forget, lose, or simply
discard their gift cards. They also make extra money off people who are
compulsively responsible about their cards. After all, the easiest way to make
sure you use the card before it expires and "get your money's worth" is to
make a purchase that you are sure will drain the entire card. The less sure
you are about the remaining balance, the bigger that purchase will be. The
same thing goes for getting all those damn gift cards out of your wallet after
your birthday so you don't develop a spinal deformity from storing them under
one butt cheek.

~~~
Xichekolas
> _The same thing goes for getting all those damn gift cards out of your
> wallet after your birthday so you don't develop a spinal deformity from
> storing them under one butt cheek._

I've been carrying my wallet in my front pocket for years for this exact
reason.

(Not really related to the topic, I know.)

Seriously though, I had back pain for quite a while. My doctor asked if I did
a lot of sitting. When I said yes, he told me to take things out of my pockets
when I would be sitting for a while. This was kind of a pain, so I just
started using only the front pockets.

~~~
Osmose
I've always thought it natural to carry my wallet in my front pockets. Any
particular reason why most people use the back?

~~~
nex3
I do so because it would get crowded in the front. I carry a lot of stuff in
my pockets: keys, phone, notebook, pencil, and wallet. None of those would
work well in my back pocket but the (relatively thin) wallet, and trying to
stuff more than two per front pocket is uncomfortable.

~~~
MichaelApproved
This would make a funny storyline for a sitcom.

------
treblig
I think I've come to accept that my gift cards will expire at some point. I'm
not sure I'd be horrifically broken up if I went to use a card after a year,
and it was no longer active. In fact, if the card worked, I'm not even sure
I'd notice to appreciate the company's noble efforts.

Granted, a great user experience should be so seamless that the customer never
even considers it, but I'm sure that there are some great brands out there
that allow their gift cards to expire. I doubt their image has struggled
enormously. Can anyone name examples or give stories?

I love the spirit of the article, though. Arbiters of the truth, indeed.

~~~
nudist
Actually -- and this is new in 2009 -- gift cards cannot expire by law in
California.

~~~
fhars
Same thing in germany. Shops can put an expiration date on their cards, but
that just means they have to pay a full refund in cash from that day on (they
have alredy benefited enough from the interest free credit extended to them by
the giver of the card). So good consumer protection laws are not only just,
but also beautiful, as they discourage bad web design :-).

~~~
mseebach
Not exactly. Sure, non-expiring giftcards are good (I think they are allowed
to expire after five years in Denmark, which makes sense, since that is the
amount of time companies are required to keep detailed bookkeeping records),
but that won't keep people from forgetting they have them, or just never
getting around to use them. And it doesn't mean companies can't make it
difficult to check the balance.

------
tlb
I read the whole thing through thinking "this doesn't sound like Dustin." I
not sure I understand the custom of guest blog entries.

Why doesn't Mr. X publish this on his own blog? It's a decent article -- why
not build up his own blog's reputation? Is he trying to reach a wider audience
by pulpit-hopping? I was more inclined to click on the link because I saw the
domain name and usually like Dustin's blog entries, so is Dustin leveraging
his brand or just diluting it?

~~~
symptic
Dustin was the cause of Mr. X losing his job, so I have a hunch he feels like
he needs to give the man whatever help he can. And the point of the guest post
is to leverage Dustin's reader base to build attention to his name. His blog
gets barely 1/50 the traffic Dustin does, I'll guarantee it. Now it's probably
closer to 1/20. Sounds good to me.

------
onewland
Kind of a simplistic post, but one thing I did like was the pink dot at the
end of the first column and the beginning of the second. It gave a really
clear indication that you didn't have to scroll past the bottom of the quote
to continue reading the text. I'd like to see this convention get used more in
the magazine-style blogs where formatting is not quite as predictable.

~~~
pierrefar
The formatting is very disconnected from how people read things on screens.
Needing a pink dot in the first place is symptom of that problem.

------
antimora
This reminded me the iTunes that makes impossible to find an option, which I
found by accident, to purchase Standard Definition videos (costs $1.99) vs.
High Definition ($2.99).

As a challenge try finding that toggle I am talking about. Try purchasing an
episode in Standard Definition of season 13 of south park, for example. You
will be surprised to see where it's.

~~~
yardie
It's on the left. In yellows letters against a black background 'In Standard
Definition'. It's not too nefarious. Unlike how they used to hide the iTunes
Plus setting (when you could order the higher quality DRM free version or be
shown the DRM loaded version).

------
balakk
I'm more puzzled that somebody who ostensibly used to train intelligence
analysts, got removed for such an indiscretion. Did he think he wouldn't get
caught out, or he simply didn't care? If he didn't care, why the Mr.X bit?

