Between Hacker News and Quora I may never do anything productive again. Still, much as I love Quora for its salon-esque feel, there are a few things about using it that really grate.
Category: good idea
Last week I went to #gumtreemeet to hear the guys discuss the extensive work they’ve done over the past year or so to in designing the new face of Gumtree. Late last year, I had the pleasure of discussing the UX approach to the redesign with Cenydd Bowles of Clearleft. It is really rather cool to see things like fuzzy location-based search make their way from concept to product.
Steve Bulling, Gumtree’s product manager, walked through the new site describing the rationale behind a few of the UCD decisions and site changes and some of the planned innovations. I think the thing I’m most looking forward to is the ability to search listings by proximity to Tube line. 
The event was organised by 1000heads, who on learning about my gluten-free-ness, expressed dismay that there were no g-f cupcakes for me to munch on.
It’s no biggie – over the last year or so I’ve just grown used to having few options in the cupcake field, unless I make my own. So I shrugged it off and enjoyed the sushi instead.
A few days later, I got this in the post along with a hand-written note from Nicola Jackson at 1000heads. It was your typical post-event thank you note with additional info which, if I’d have received by email, I’d have just dismissed without much thought. So, okay, a postal follow up allows them to include some non-Newtonian Gumtree Goo, which is always fun to play with, and hey, who can’t use (another) USB stick? 
The thing that really impressed me was a) the hand-written note and b) the postscript, which reads: “P.S. I’ve included a gluten-free treat to make up for the lack of cupcakes!”
Entirely unexpected, totally made my day. Thanks, Nicola and Gumtree!
For those seeking a true challenge: Rock Paper Scissors Spock Lizard – with helpful diagram.
(Via gimbo, of course.)
One of the things I enjoyed most about working at Swansea University was the constant little theatre of the human condition that played out daily on the staff mailing lists. Sad to say, we never had anything half as amusing as this: “What happens when the muses take hold of an English department, and focus their will upon the lowly subject of an errant red hand truck.”
(Via Neil Gaiman’s Journal.)
