The Report Nobody Acted On “To me, the biggest insult as a researcher is when people read a report and they say, mm, interesting” 1. That is Tomer Sharon, in a talk at Google on the failure of traditional research reports, describing the most common outcome of the job: a deck circulated, a few people […]

When a Redesign Launches Without a Baseline A redesign goes live, the leadership team looks at it on a big screen, somebody says it feels cleaner and more modern, and the project is declared a success. Nobody has checked whether a customer can still find the returns policy. Most website redesigns do not fail loudly. […]

A Chatbot Invents a Refund Policy Jake Moffatt asked Air Canada’s website chatbot about bereavement fares after a death in his family. The chatbot told him he could book now and apply for a discount within 90 days. No such policy existed. When he applied, the airline refused. A Canadian tribunal ruled against it, ordering […]

A Form That Times Out It is 11pm and a parent is renewing a benefit online, because 11pm is the only quiet hour in the day. The form runs to six screens. On screen five, after a pause to dig a reference number out of a drawer, the session expires. The entries are gone. There […]

A Checkmark Before the Click A user types a new password into a signup form. At the eighth character, a small gray circle beside the words “at least 8 characters” turns into a green checkmark. Nothing has been submitted. The form has simply said, instantly, that one rule has been met. That checkmark is a […]

Srini Penumella, CEO of Spruce Technology, Wins the Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2023 New Jersey Award We are delighted to announce that Srini Penumella, the CEO of Spruce Technology, has been honored with the esteemed Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2023 New Jersey program award. This recognition highlights Srini’s exceptional leadership, vision, and accomplishments in transforming […]