That’s me up there, next to my mom. But more importantly, there’s a 1968 Dodge Dart behind us. This was the official beginning of my never-to-end appreciation of the Dodge Dart. It was as basic as you could get. There was no power-anything. Not even power steering (which drove my mom to nickname it “the Beast”). It was as basic as you could get: vinyl seats and floor covering, no A/C, AM radio, crank-windows, manual transmission (three-on-the-tree), and the classic 225 slant-six engine.

My family became a Dodge family in 1965 with a Dodge Dart — a two-door medium blue one. This was after a very bad experience with a light blue 1960 Ford Falcon. It had earned itself a reputation with my father as a lemon. Not sure why — I was too young to keep track of such things, but it was bad enough to end an association with Ford that had stood since 1922 or so.

I eventually ended up driving the ’68 in high school, choosing it (as if I had a choice) over the light blue 1973 Dodge Dart that replaced it as our main car. Actually the ’73 became my mom’s car (to which she gave the more pleasant name of Henry, no doubt due to the added amenities of power steering, automatic transmission, and FM radio) and my dad took the ’68 which he then named “Bessie Lou” (yikes, a little cheesy). He later sold it with 160,000 miles to a colleague in ’79 when an underwhelming yellow-tan Dodge Aspen (with the addition of A/C and carpet) arrived on the scene.

“The Beast/Bessie Lou” (names I never actually used — to me it was just “the car”) survived five cross-country summer trips (Maryland-LA-SF-Seattle-Maryland) and my less-than-gentle driving (downshifts to 2nd gear from 80 mph, full-rev clutch-popping starts), and whatever other abuse my friends and I inflicted that I’m not recalling.

My current car, a 1986 BMW 535i with 290,000 miles (“Rosebud”) is really just the 1968 Dodge Dart revisited. Call me crazy but I think it has a similar feel in the driving (though more power and better handling). There’s a certain wonderful harshness that reminds you there’s a machine underneath it all. The BMW has carpet, leather seats, power-everything, A/C (which hasn’t worked for years), and manual transmission (5-on-the-floor). Of this I am certain: that if The Beast and Rosebud were ever to meet, they’d be friends for sure.

After a long day of great sessions at An Event Apart on Monday, all the while dealing with various work issues due to some new feature deployments, tons of related emails, and wifi issues, I headed out to the opening night party. I was vaguely aware that there was a meetup I wanted to go to sometime this week, thinking it was maybe Tuesday.

About 8:45 p.m. a tweet from my friend, LimeyG, broke through the noise, “Learing about Content Strategy with Kristina Halvorson”…huh? It’s tonight? Oh _____! Hey…why didn’t I get a reminder? Kicking myself, I ran over to where it was taking place only to find a few stragglers at 9:15 p.m. I checked back through my emails and, surprise, I had actually received two reminders (well…a reminder and a comment notification).

So, how did I miss them? I attribute it to two factors: 1. I was distracted, 2. The email subject-line content was not strong enough to break through the clutter.

The reminder subject-line stated: Reminder: “Talk content strategy with Kristina Halvorson is tomorrow, Monday, May 24, 2010 6:30 PM!” Hmm…better, clutter-breaking would have been: Kristina Halvorson on Content Strategy – Tomorrow, Monday, May 24, 2010 6:30 PM! It gets the keywords I’m scanning for right there in front. I’m not looking for “Reminder” or “talk” — I’m looking for “Kristina Halvorson” or “Content Strategy!” When the first two words of the message are “Reminder: Talk…” I scan right by it. Those are not indispensable words to me.

A second reminder of sorts stated: “A comment was just posted for Talk content strategy with Kristina Halvorson.” Better clutter-breaking would have been, “Comment — Kristina Halvorson on Content Strategy — new comment added.” A subject line like, “A comment was just posted for Talk…” is another one I’m likely to scan right by. I get more than a few of those every day.

For comparison, another meetup reminder I got around the same time was: “Boston Web Design Meetup Group.” ALL keywords, undeniably valuable and relevant to what’s top-of-mind for me.

OK, isn’t it really MY fault that I was not paying attention? Ultimately, yes. But it’s the job of the writer and designer to break through the noise and distractions that people are dealing with every day. A successful approach to content and design takes the distracted, fatigued, and otherwise beleaguered user into account. And a Content Strategy should consider (as Kristina says) that EVERYTHING is content.

Although I missed the meetup — somewhat compensated by the fact that I got to see Kristina’s session at An Event Apart today — this was a valuable experience. A wake-up moment. You could have the greatest content on your Web site and yet, your customer might never see it without something as simple as a good, keyword-rich, user-revant email subject line!

P.S. Check out Kristina’s book, Content Strategy for the Web. I have it — it’s great.

I put stickers all over my laptop. Why? Because I think it’s cool? It can’t be that simple. After much thought, my excuse is that it integrates the machine into the environment. When it’s sitting (closed) on a coffee table or a desk, it’s hardly noticeable. It’s also faintly reminiscent of those old steamer trunks bound for cross-Atlantic voyages.

This is a cool old game I like to play.

What is it about grain elevators? I can’t pass by one without taking a picture or wanting to take a picture. They’re always surrounded by the most wonderful conglomeration of random industrial stuff and railroad cars. Maybe it was all those drives across the country when I was a kid…Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, North Dakota…Saskatchewan. And that nice one in Alton, Illinois near where I went to college. Grain elevators. The skyscrapers of the plains.

I’m riding around with two sets of tires mounted on rims in my back seat. Why? Because they’re not just tires to be disposed of. They’re really table parts. But until they become part of an actual table I don’t really have another good place to put them. Since I’m very tired of these four noisy passengers, I’m more inclined to actually make the table than if the tires were stashed away in a storage facility. Just have to find the right glass top. Something a little battered would be nice.

I’m thinking of painting my car just to give it a combo retro-tuner BMW art car look. I’m inspired by a few examples I’ve seen from the BMW “art cars” to ones like this WWII fighter-look or this extreme, rusty one by Mike Burroughs. Been thinking of doing this for a few years. Maybe now is the time? Why wait? Why not consider the car a canvas? This scheme is my leading choice. Notice the imitation two-color BBS wheels.

See, the thing is, the car is old (24 years soon) and rusty, with a whole list of things to replace, and 287,000 miles (the last 110,000 of them by me). I’m looking for a replacement actually, sadly. One like it only less rusty/broken/driven. Or perhaps something newer, though, to me, there’s nothing more desirable than a nice BMW E28 — like THIS one.

Only thing is, the paint is, amazingly, still in great condition. It still cleans up well. So it’s kind of sad to “ruin” it. Also, do I want to stand out so much, driving around in an oddly-painted car? Still…if its days are few, and its fully depreciated, let’s go out in style.

I was at the San Francisco airport, confused, staring at a BART ticket machine. I was on my way to a User Experience conference. So it should come as no surprise that User Experience was top-of-mind (well, it’s always top-of-mind). It strikes me as tragic that one of the first User Experiences you’re likely to encounter upon arrival at a new destination is the purchase of some kind of public transportation ticket. Tragic because it could be a delightfully seamless transition to your final destination, and yet is so often poorly done. And the challenges are amplified by unfamiliar surroundings, commotion, baggage, fatigue, and time pressure.

The BART ticket machine User Experience was not horrible, but it did take a few mistakes to get over the initial hurdle of how to pay with a credit card, which is not clear on the little 123 diagram (but who reads diagrams anyway)? The diagram shows money going in as step one. Apparently the diagram is to be taken literally and does not refer broadly to any form of payment, but only cash. The credit card actually goes into a slot in 2. But look at the order of the functional areas of the machine. From right to left, 2 appears first. Why? This causes perceptual friction as you try to fit the elements into a coherent mental model. 1 and 3 are indicated by green and red shaded areas, respectively. 2 is indicated by a blue tape outline that looks like it was added as an afterthought, since there is a green shaded area for credit card swiping inside the blue outline.

Another challenge was that I had no idea what dollar-value ticket to purchase to travel from SFO to the Montgomery station near my hotel. And it was not clear how I might find that information. So, I bought a $20.00 ticket, figuring that should be more than enough. It was, though the cost one-way was a surprising (to me) $8.00, which left me more than enough to return to the airport a few days later. Still, I would have liked to have the information readily available.

This post would normally end here, except for a happy occurrence at the conference. During a break between sessions, a design student was presenting a model for an improved BART ticket-purchase process (above) that he and fellow classmates had developed. It actually addressed the two issues I mention above. It was fluid, intelligent, delightful, and intuitive to use. If only it could see the light of day (or dark of tunnel), but he says it’s a challenge getting through the BART bureaucracy. In any case, good job.

OK, I know the T in Boston was the first underground subway and it’s more than 100 years old and has evolved organically, while the BART system had the advantage of being designed all at once. The T for all it’s quirks, is endearing and quaint if you look at it right. That still does not excuse the fact that there is no rapid transit link directly into Logan. The Blue line requires you to wait for a shuttle to and from the T station. The Silver line…well it does go right into the airport, but is essentially itself a shuttle (getting real here) from the Red line’s South Station stop. If you’ve ever sat through stops at terminals A and B while needing to get to D or E, you know what I mean.

Still, the T is the least overall cumbersome and expensive method of getting to the airport in Boston. It saves that messy problem of where to stash a car for a week or watching the meter in your cab as you sit in traffic in the tunnel.

And both BART and the T have at least one thing in common. Ticket vending machines that are completely mystifying to the first time user. More on that in another post.