It never fails. In almost every project I’ve worked on, there’s been a healthy amount of chaos. A certain design solution seems right, then, as if on cue, some new issue comes out of the woodwork. For awhile, I thought this was an artifact of poor process. I’ve learned, however, that it’s completely normal.

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Occasionally, something happens that’s so remarkable, it bears writing about. It may not be directly related to user experience design (although, quite directly related to user experience as a whole), but an experience I had earlier this morning demands being written about.

This morning – a Monday – I jumped in the car to go to the office, and heard the slow crank of the battery. Knowing that the battery was on its way out, I opted to swing by Sears on the way to swap the battery. I left about 30 minutes early, thinking that, surely, that extra buffer would guarantee I make it to work close to my normal time. It’s worth noting that I chose Sears due to a warranty on my now-dying battery, and wanted to take advantage of that warranty replacement.

What transpired over the course of the next four hours is a case study in how not to handle customer service, especially via social media.

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Adoption – or the process of getting someone to start (and continue) using your product – is one of the pillars of product success. The subject of many pre-launch conversations, companies launching a new thing out in the world are (usually, and hopefully) keenly aware of the challenge of getting people to start using what they’ve created.

This is especially prevalent on the web, where switching costs are so low. For users, it’s so easy to hit the back button and go to a competitor, that getting people in the door and attached is a key part of grabbing some market share. Seems like common sense, huh?

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Lately, I’ve noticed more and more food truck rallies happening, which is awesome. Here in Tampa, there’s been an explosion of food trucks, and these rallies are a way for them to gain visibility and exposure in a single event.

For those not familiar, here’s how it works (at least, here’s how the ones in Tampa I’ve been to have worked…): a mass of food trucks descends on a location, usually a big parking lot or field. These food trucks line up and open for business, with hoards of people coming out to sample their wares.

The last one I attended in Tampa was great, except for one thing: the experience was terrible.

As I walked around the rally, I was trying to get my head around what made the experience bad. It was in a beautiful area of South Tampa, on a gorgeous day, but there was something that was making it less than ideal.

Then it hit me: food portion sizes. The food portions were too big!

Let me explain: At a food truck rally, the implied goal is to circle a bunch of food trucks to allow attendees to see and taste food from food trucks around the city. The problem is, when you’re serving entree-sized portions, no one samples. At that point, there are at least a couple main issues that make the experience bad:

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I’ve been working on building stuff for the web for about 13 years now, and I’ve finally come to an important conclusion: the web is boring.

When we all started jumping onto the web in the mid-to-late 90s, it was exciting – the new frontier. We rushed through the Dot Com bust, inventing entire new ways of interacting with each other (Myspace, Facebook, Twitter) and creating an entire ecosystem to support our lives that never existed before. From then, up until now, it was pretty exciting.

But now, it’s getting boring. We’ve moved from a pioneering spirit to one full of static and parity. With the economic downturn, companies reduced spending on web-related projects, often stripping them down to merely content repositories and distribution channels.

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