MikeBD

weblog for MikeBD.com. Musings of a 24/6 techie (Software Architect / Technical Manager) family guy struggling to find meaning, balance and strong design / implementation supporting excellent user experiences.

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Thursday, November 09, 2006

Help Mike Stop Rhyming

Once in a while I get started rhyming and have trouble stopping. Witness the following essay on exceptional experiences:

It has been said that in many categories, brand loyalty is near negligible these days. Often times, purchasing decisions can be made by consulting online or hard copy customer and editorial reviews and shopping around for the best prices. I have done this myself many times. However, there is one brand in particular that I now have very strong loyalty to because they rescued me from a horrible user experience.

Once upon a time in a cheerful land before the ultimate rein of Schwartz and Reisman, lived a wonderful site known as Chapters.ca. It had books and so much more but mostly a very functional store. With checkout options galore, but not so much as to implore, a need for manual interaction to complete the transaction. It was speedy as can be and always led me to believe that my order would arrive exactly as it was described. Trust, you see, is a key to usability.

But darkness descended on the land when one day tragically began with a rude shock awaiting me when the site unexpectedly had a new name and colour scheme. What once I knew and loved before alas it was to be no more. Chapters.ca had been usurped by Indigo. The experience I had enjoyed was ruined when I was annoyed to find errors and timeouts interrupting my checkouts.

When once I was described as sane, exasperation overcame my calm serenity and threatened to bring me to my knees. At last it occurred to me the notion of a property named for so many tropical trees. Amazon.ca had sprouted in the land and it was then that I began what is a likely guaranty of faithful brand loyalty. It works and does as I expect, leaving me sans any regret for the time and money I invest into their flourishing forest.

Please send $9.99 to the “Help Mike Stop Rhyming” fund (http://www.HMSR.ca).
Funds will be distributed at the sole discretion of the HMSR fund operators with up to 100% covering administration fees.


Luckily for me I met my Wife when it could be that such cheesy prose was not held against me as perhaps it should have been. (Oops, there I go again).

DISCLAIMER: All characters, names and places used in HMSR fiction and semifiction (whether online, in print or any other media) are fictitious and are used herein for the purposes of comment, criticism, parody, pointing out political and/or social injustice or any other purpose through which humanity is held up to the ridicule it frequently deserves. Any similarity to real people, without parodic purpose, is a coincidence. All trade names, product names and trademarks of third parties, including any trademarked characters, used in HMSR fiction and semifiction (whether online, in print or any other media) are used without the authorization of those third parties, and are used only for the purpose of parody and identification. No sponsorship, endorsement or affiliation by or with those third parties exists or should be implied.

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