Rafblog - Jake Cohen's Blog

Why are buyers so easily satisfied?

Every time I look at seller feedback left by previous buyers, whether on Ebay or other similar online sites, it is usually something similar to the following:

Excellent! Item arrived exactly as described! Very good seller! AAAAAA++++++++++++++

Why does a transaction where nothing extraordinary happened deserve such a glowing review? If I went into a coffee shop, and I ordered a cappuccino, and five minutes later, received it, I wouldn't go onto Yelp and write a review saying how great the coffee shop is because I got what I ordered.

It is really service above and beyond the ordinary that merits a glowing review. For example, my wife took her car to Acura of Bellevue for routine service, and they gave her a free rental (many dealerships do this), but then they moved all her stuff into the rental, and even transferred our son's car seat (which is not a quick or easy task) for her, which was a nice thing to do, and is not something you would ordinarily expect. When she forgot something and drove back to get it, they jogged out to the car to hand it to her so that she wouldn't have to park, get our son back out of his seat, and go inside the dealership.

This is the sort of "going above and beyond" service I feel merits a positive review. They recognized that dropping your car off for service while dealing with an infant can be troublesome, and they went out of their way to make it as easy as possible. When Acura corporate contacted us to ask how our recent service at the dealership went, we let them know that that dealer is keeping us happy and building trust and respect for the Acura brand. I would not have had the same positive things to say if they simply performed the service and gave our car back.

Recently, I ordered an air conditioner mounting bracket online. They shipped the part, and it arrived. A few days later, I received an e-mail from them asking me to go write a positive review for them. For what? What did they do to deserve a positive review? Not steal my money or bungle a fairly simple transaction? Sorry, you have to do better than the minimum to earn a positive review. Of course, I'm not going to write a negative review either, but I'm not going out of my way to tell other people that this company can complete transactions in an adequate fashion.

Faster? Or As Fast As

The new iPhone has been announced. I was reading the Techcrunch article about it, and noticed one of my grammar pet peeves staring back at me from the second paragraph:

Most applications will run at least 2 times faster, according to Apple.

The problem with this, is that the phrase "2 times faster" actually means "three times as fast as." Yet, in nearly all cases, they really just mean "twice as fast as."

This is the same sort of writing that leads people to distrust anything you say. Like advertising a sale where you can "save up to 50% or more" on anything in the store. What does that actually mean? If you can actually save more than 50% on something, why not say that?

I think what is happening is that the marketing appeal of certain language wins out over the need to be precise. "Over 400 titles available!" sounds more impressive than "403 titles available." "Save up to 50% or more!" sounds more impressive than "Save up to 51%." And, of course, "2 times faster" sounds more impressive than "2 times as fast." After all, one has the word "fast", and the other has "faster."

Still, I think the language you choose for describing the technical advances of the latest version of a popular electronic device needs to be a bit more precise than what you would use to lure shoppers to your booth at a county fair. Whether the phone is double or triple the speed is a much more important difference than whether that Ginsu knife can make tomato slices that are twice or three times as thin as a standard kitchen knife.

Form Follows Function

A recent New York Times article claims the Demise of 'Form Follows Function'.

One of the main examples they use is the iPod Shuffle, claiming that you could not reasonably expect to figure out that the device is meant to play music by looking at it.

I think this implies a corollary to the "form follows function" postulate, that could be called "function can be deduced from form." I do not think this is always the case, nor do I think it needs to be. The meaning of "form follows function" is that the ideal physical construction and appearance of something should be derived from what it is meant to do. Unless one of the things that the object is meant to do is to convey a sense of what it is used for, then this does not need to be reflected in how the object looks.

To use the iPod Shuffle example, its form does in fact follow its function. When you consider that its function is to play music and to be as small and simple as possible. This sort of tradeoff happens all the time. They used to make AM/FM radio headphones, where you trade off the convenience of general-purpose headphones for the convenience of only having to use a single device and no cord when you want to listen to the radio.

As another example, look at the typical office stapler. There's no real way to deduce that this is used to fasten pieces of paper together without actually trying to use it for that purpose. Yet its construction reflects its purpose. You can't always tell what something does by looking at it, but the way it looks often makes sense based on its purpose, once you know it.