Netflix is the best when it comes to movie rentals by mail. They have quick turn-around and their site is easy to use, but they sorely lack in one area…envelope design. It’s no big secret that the envelope they provide is awkward to use correctly. The envelope is upside-down when you put the movie in it from the right and it’s a toss up as to whether you have the barcode showing through the cutout on the back. It’s just plain bad design!

What’s Human Nature?

In most interaction, right to left is a common thing. Think about it…CDs, DVDs, books…heck, even the iPhone homescreen navigation makes you swipe right to left for more screens. The point is that it’s something that’s now ingrained in our culture and way of life.

When we do these actions, whatever is in front of us is still readable, right-side up.

The Problem!

If you’re trying to put the movie back in their envelope, intuitively, good luck.

First…it’s upside-down, if the address side is facing you. Then, the text on the white sleeve that the movie summary is on is facing away from you, this allows the barcode to show through their cutout, though, this is also assuming that you’re putting it in with the sleeve opening facing to the top…ugh, you see the design issues here?

Resolution.

If they would just change the way they’re printing information on the envelopes and the sleeves, this could all be avoided. It’s not a huge undertaking and it could even decrease their processing time (by a small margin probably, but hey, it helps). Here’s the change-up:

• 1. Flip what’s printing on the address side 180 degrees. This allows people to naturally put the movie in from the right-hand side. This just makes sense.
• 2. Print the barcode (the one that shows through the cutout) on the back of the white sleeve…for all 4 orientations (up, down, left, right). This would increase the chances that the barcode is showing through the cutout. It also makes it more natural for the person to put the sleeve into the envelope with the summary facing them.

People Don’t Notice Great Design

It’s true. People notice poor design, but when something just works, they’re too busy using it to notice how the design is working in their favor. It’s the same reason why companies like Apple do so well with their products and interfaces. It’s many small things that add up to make something great!

I do think Netflix is a great service, but I do think that they could spend a bit more time on making the interaction design more fluid and intuitive for people. Am I wrong?

The iPhone 3G and iPhone 2.0 firmware have been released and everyone has their top 10 lists of the apps they love so far. I decided to do a bit of a reversal on that and I give you the top 3 iPhone apps that I currently hate, but that are ironically the ones I use the most.

1. Twitterrific

My main problem with Twitterrific is that it lacks a lot of the functionality that Twitter offers, though this may be by design. I have tried Twittelator and Twinkle, but I didn’t like the cluttered look of Twittelator and I didn’t like the “identity” wonkyness of Twinkle (let alone the down time I was suffering with it).

Pros:
It has a superb presentation for looking at Twitter. It’s been the best I’ve seen so far, just enough detail, but just enough simplicity. I really like how the reply/user info screens look too, they just lack that little bit of functionality I’m looking for.

Cons:
You can’t find new people to follow, you can’t look at who is following you, you can’t look at who your friends are following, etc. The scrolling is a tad sluggish sometimes. I’m not sure why they don’t cache user pictures either…we have sqlite databases for apps now…people should be using them. The whole selling model is dumb (imho). Just take the ad out or give me much more for paying. I’m not spending $10 to get rid of a small ad that appears infrequently or to get the “light” background. Give me more ability and then we’re talking.

2. NetNewsWire

I actually wasn’t sure I wanted to include this, as most of the problems have been fixed by the developer but the Apple app store is just slow to getting the updates out. Nevertheless, here’s how it stands as of today (I’m looking forward to the updates coming, as much of the cons will be fixed).

Pros:
I love NetNewsWire for the Mac, so when I heard my favorite RSS reader was coming to the iPhone, I rejoiced. It allows syncing of your feeds across many platforms and is, in my opinion, the best reader I’ve found (even better than Google Reader). The UI is clean and it syncs to my account, but unfortunately, that’s where it stops in the current 1.0 version.

Cons:
Number one on my list is that I find it doesn’t download all the feeds associated to my account. I’ve tried resetting and re-syncing, but it’s just really gimpy each time and gets different feeds each time I retry it. I love that I can add articles to my “clips” folder, but there’s no way to see my clips folder. I was really confused by that one. I would also like to see collapsable folders, or at least an option for how the main navigation works, but I understand it’s a toss up on UI practice, so that’s not a huge deal. As well as on the desktop, I need search capability if I want to find something again. It’s just not there.

3. Bank of America

In day-to-day life, I keep close tabs on my bank accounts, so naturally when I saw this app coming, I was stoked. Once I opened it, my excitement lasted a whole 3 seconds.

Pros:
I can check my account balances and do some basic online banking.

Cons:
This is not an iPhone app by any stretch of the imagination, other than you install it. This app is one of the reasons why I hate a lot of the day one apps from the app store. They cheated. It’s a native iPhone app with a huge web view control. This means that it’s just showing the website in it. Boo, BoA, you fail. It’s just plain text (like their mobile site) and offers no enhanced UI. They say it’s coming, but we’ll see. Final score: F-

There were a few runners up, but these were the top 3 I was excited about and they managed to disappoint me pretty well. Don’t get me wrong, a light saber for my phone is pretty awesome, but it doesn’t get me to where I want to be, which is doing a lot of my daily activities from my phone.

I think we’ll see some powerful apps come out soon and I’m hoping that Apple can get the process of pushing out updates figured out, but until then, we’re stuck with subpar apps that crash our phones.

Am I expecting too much from these apps? Tell me what you think and let me know what apps you have found to be amazing…or not so amazing.