Amazon.com is the gold standard for the online buying experience. They have been there since the dawn of e-commerce, and their investments into the buying experience have made it the ultimate destination for book buyers all over the world.

Amazon’s secret sauce is very often its ability to “cross-sell”: knowing what you’ve been interested in before, it can make recommendations on related books that others have purchased. This technique has been applied in a number of different ways throughout the site. For example, when Amazon notices that some people buy similar books, they can create impromptu packaged deals of those books for others to buy at a discount.

Every five days or so, I receive an email from Amazon. These messages are generated automatically, and are based on books that I’ve either rated or purchased. The goal of these messages is to recommend other books that I’m interested in.

The problem is, their picks are about as accurate as my three-year-old with a colouring book.

That’s not very accurate.

Case in point: I received this today from Amazon:

As someone who has expressed interest in books about graphic design and programming…

Okay, so far, so good. I have, in fact, purchased books with these subjects.

you may be interested to know what leading graphic artists and special effects developers are reading to stay on top of their game.

Woah. I get the relation between graphic design and graphic artists, but it’s a pretty big leap between programming and special effects developers! What follows are some suggestions from the SIGGRAPH conference: a trade show for computer graphic artists. Those titles include seven books, none of which were the least bit interesting.

The emails that come asking about my interest in children’s books (gifts for my daughter), young adult novels (my wife) or pulp action (my dad) are way out!

Think of it this way: have you ever received a gift from someone who doesn’t really know you? With the best of intentions, they hear that you’re into computers, so they give you a random piece of Windows software. Problem being, you are using a Mac, and even if you did run Windows, you have no use for some extravagant upgrade. So while you’re touched at the attempt, you’re secretly disappointed they didn’t go the whole way, and find out what you’re really into.

So too with Amazon. Every five days, it’s Christmas and I’m getting something that doesn’t quite fit. In several ways, their cross-selling technology works very well; in their email messaging, it’s out to lunch.

Solutions? Here’s a crazy thought. Rather than attempting to guess my preferences through such sneaky methods as past purchases (which often include gifts for others), why not just ask? I’d be happy to be invited to go through some possible choices and fine-tune my preferences.

It would sure make a gold-standard buying experience even better.

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This one falls under the category of Fun Stuff. As a Canadian, I’ve long watched those American TV shows and movies where the characters dine from Chinese Food takeout boxes. They’re so standard as to be unremarkable: hand-sized boxes stuff full of fried noodles or savoury pork, picked out with nimble chopsticks.

In Canada, for the most part these boxes don’t exist. They are a foreign item, completely unused. Perhaps it’s the same in America, where this is a TV-only phenomenon. Who knows? The point is, I’ve always wanted to eat out of one. It would just be cool.

At the last baseball game that I attended this season, I finally had that chance. The diverse restaurants at the SkyDome (and no, I will never, ever, ever call it the !bleep! Center) include a noodle vendor that serves up their wares in this very container (see the picture). With a light in my eyes, I barely registered the $9 cost, and received my cardboard-enclosed meal.

As I worked my chopsticks in the stands, I made a dreadful realization. These Chinese food takeout boxes represent a dreadful user interface! Stuffed full of fried noodles, chicken and veggies, the container made it very difficult to fish out a bunch of noodles, because they were packed and bundled together so tightly. I thought the situation would improve as it got emptier, but the improvement was only marginal. By the time I packed it in, my chopstick hand was sore from maneuvering and pulling hard on the noodle pile.

The conclusion? Canadian Chinese food takeout containers may be entirely unglamorous, but they are a darn sight more usable.

It was delicious, though.

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