Exactly one year ago, I stumbled across WordPress’ neat blogging initiative – The Daily Post – which provided daily inspiration and topics that aimed to get bloggers to post at least once a day. Thankfully, there was a less intense once-a-week version, to which I pledged in an effort to really establish some momentum on my blog. Was I successful? I didn’t end up posting once a week, but participating in The Daily Post definitely helped spur my writing of more substantial posts.

Luckily, it’s the new lunar year, so let’s just call these Chinese New Year resolutions :) And now, the goals for 2012:

1. Learn to Code
   This is actually a continuation from last summer’s goal. However, I’ve decided to go in the direction of Java rather than C#, since I stumbled upon Stanford’s CS106A Programming Methodology course online. I’ve gone through three lectures and so far this seems like a really course (with all the materials for free online, hooray).
2. Complete a Web Project
   There are actually two projects in queue for this – my Antarctica website and possibly a website for my father that will play with a much wider variety of HTML5/CSS3 specs.
3. Take More Photographs
   I tend to take a ridiculous amount of photographs whenever I’m travelling, but the same can’t be said when I’m home in SF. While a picture a day is a bit ambitious, I do want to try and snap a few photos at least once a week, whether they’re food photos, event captures or even simple shots of the view outside my apartment.
4. Become Less Awkward at Hip Hop
   Definitely a work in progress. Hopefully, taking more of Allan Frias’ classes at Dance Mission will help, hah.

Here’s to the Year of the Dragon!

Shopping Bag Screen

So you’ve placed a nice (likely expensive) item (or five) in the shopping bag, and now you’re ready to checkout and get them itemz in your hand. After looking through to make sure the items, sizes and quantities are correct, you scroll down to hit the “Checkout” button, except wait a second… (Click on the image for an enlarged version)

After scanning all the info on the right, you have to switch to the far left in order to initiate the checkout process. From a distance, those call-to-actions on the left look obvious, but when you’re zoomed in and focused on the shopping bag info on the right side, the CTAs are nearly invisible.

As a side note: no, I did not actually buy this lovely (and very expensive) bag – hah, I wish! Anyways, let’s say you decide to register for an account, which leads to issue numero dos:

Account Registration Screen

(Click on the image for an enlarged version)

Same problem! Again! What the heck, Barneys. Also, in this view, there’s the Newsletter email “submit” button at the bottom right that provides a bit of additional confusion.

Although this wouldn’t necessarily deter me from purchasing something from Barneys’, it would be a more pleasant experience if the actions were designed as part of the form flows.

When I look at department store websites, I like to check out all their offerings for particular brands. To my frustration, quite a few sites don’t offer a very simple and convenient user experience element – a link to the brand’s category page.

Offender Numero Uno: Bloomingdale’s

As you can see, no visible link back to Joie’s brand page.

Offender Numero Dos: Saks Fifth Avenue

Same as Bloomies. Both sites offer links to similar styles and “customers also loved…”. Why can’t they implement a simple link to the brand page?

Now that we’ve gotten the offenders out of the way, here are some examples of retailers who do it right:

Reformed Offender: Neiman Marcus

Neiman used to be an offender, but has since seen the error of their ways!

Good Example Numero Dos: Zappos

Not surprising that they’ve implemented this, given that they have an entire page dedicated to their user experience team.

Aside from the user experience benefit, including a text link to the brand category page provides value from an SEO standpoint. So really, please just do it.

Update: Unfortunately, I didn’t get any of the gold-outlined items above, but I still grabbed some choice items from the collection without breaking my wallet. After the break, a breakdown of events (accompanied with a dash of sleep-deprived delirium):

3.10 AM: Roll out of my apartment to catch a cab to H&M near Union Square. Thankfully, there are plenty of cabs as folks are returning home after last call.

3.25 AM: Get dropped off at the front of the store and walk almost the entire block of O’Farrell. A little worried about the length of the line – looks like there are at least 200 people already waiting. On the bright side, we have Macy’s Christmas display to keep us company.
(Apologies for grainy photos from my 3GS)

3.30 AM: H&M worker (poor guy, probably thinks we’re all insane) comes down the line with the click counter. We ask how many people are in line, and he says less than 200, whew.

4.00 AM: Befriend gals behind us in line, and begin plotting strategy for dividing and conquering the women’s section to ensure successful acquisitions.

5.00 AM: Starbucks is open! Rush to get warm caffeine.

5.30 AM: Cheerful girls from H&M’s PR agency start distributing instant Starbucks Via coffee and snacks to help alleviate our slightly frozen selves.

6.00 AM: T minus 2 hours. Fervently hope that many of the guys ahead of us are just boyfriends who’ve been dragged along for the ride, and aren’t actually going to use their wristbands to buy anything.

7.30 AM: Wristbands distributed! We’re at the start of the 9:45 AM group, which means we’re around numbers #101 – #105 in line. Not bad.

7.40 AM: People start packing up their camping gear and stand up so the line shrinks and moves us forward. Fingers crossed.

8.00 AM: Doors open, and line starts funneling into the men’s collection, which is placed right near the entrance. A DJ spins as the usual madness ensues. We hear about Ebay-ers at the front of the line who just scooped handfuls of jackets (especially the one Kanye wore at the VS Fashion Show) into their shopping bags.

8.30 AM: After milling about upstairs, H&M employees direct us to line up around the perimeter of the floor according to our wristband color.

8.45 AM: There’s a commotion as 16 people missed their time slot due to color confusion (there are 3 shades of blue wristbands) and inattention to the rules.

9:30 AM: We’re herded into the holding corral as the group before us shops. Thankfully, we’re at the head of the line and can scope out where items are located. Slightly anxious as we don’t see any of the leather pieces, and then we’re told that they sold out within the first hour, jeebus.

9:45 AM: After watching employees shift the locations of certain pieces, we’re let loose. No running allowed – one of the security guards jokingly (or maybe not so jokingly…) threatens to tackle us if we run in. Everyone power walks to their area of the room, with dresses going the fastest. The studded yellow and pink dresses are half sold out, and luckily Sharon grabs me one of the cut-out sleeve black silk dresses before those disappear, too. There’s only one black double-strap dress left in size 10, so that’s a no-go also.

10:00 AM: After our 15 minutes are up, we’re herded into the cashier area. Lots of people grabbed two sizes of each item, since there wasn’t enough time to try anything on. Overhear a lucky guy who managed to snag a men’s leather jacket that the jackets are already selling for $600+ on eBay.

Aftermath: The Haul

Keepers

• Black cut-out sleeve silk dress
• Black studded tank top with Greek motif (opted for this rather than the silk cap sleeve top, which was a looser fit than expected)
• Black leggings with studded Greek motif
• Gold shield bracelet

Gifts

• Pink archive silk scarf – Gifted to mom for her birthday
• Blue & green archive silk scarf – Gifted to mom for her birthday

Returns

• Gold diamante chunky ring – Returned since Size M was too large
• Black long silk dress, similar in style to the one above – returned, due to wonky fit

Dress Number One:

Work-appropriate, yet with a bit of edge. This one’s definitely a keeper if I can snag it.

Dress Number Two:

Edgy LBD that should be good for multiple seasons. So far, this is a maybe, depending on the other items I choose to keep and the quality of the material.

Dress Number Three

Ahh, the classic Versace leather dress that’s been making the rounds over the past few months. Fantastic dress, but not very practical. This one’s a maybe.

Shoes

Love the style – I just don’t know if it’s worth $129, even with the Versace name attached to it. I feel like I can find something similar from Aldo for less than $100.

Skirt

Saw this skirt in person at the Union Square store, and it looks a lot better than in photos. However, $129 is a bit pricey even for silk, so this is a maybe.

Top

Matching top, seems a bit more versatile than the skirt and $69 is a fairly reasonable price, given that the material is silk.

While the Versace for H&M collection is pretty fabulous, it doesn’t have as many wearable pieces as the Lanvin or Jimmy Choo collaborations. I’m sorry, but there’s no way I’m going near any of the crazy 90′s-esque archive printed items. Also, there are fewer items at an affordable price – last year, the Lanvin T’s were $40, which is pretty reasonable given the amount of embellishments.

Despite that fact, I’m still going to line up in the wee hours of the morning this Saturday. Thankfully, Michelle is also crazy enough to line up with me! Fingers crossed that the forecasted showers on Saturday will prevent too many people from lining up pre 5AM.

However, flipping through (and drooling over) endless images requires one to click through several pages, which makes sense. On the bottom of the first page, you get a very clear link to read more on the next page:

More stuff on the next page? Awesome, I like more stuff so I will click and continue my journey. And at the bottom of the second page:

Even more stuff, you say?! Onwards we go. And then:

Lots more stuff? Why yes, I would like to see lots more stuff. On page number four, they begin presenting the standard navigation links:

Augh! Why Uncrate, why?

When it comes to page navigation, the Previous-Next duo is confusing when they’re not supported by any other indicators. On a blog, I always naturally associate “Previous” with posts from a previous time or day. However, the navigation rarely works this way, so I end up going back and forth between pages multiple times.

Now, I’m not saying this terminology should be banished forever – after all, I may be the only odd person who gets confused by this. There are better ways to provide helpful indicators:

As you can see, Mashable also includes page numbers so you won’t/can’t mistake “Previous” as a chronological term.

Dear Internets, please stop using “Previous” and “Next” as your sole navigation signals. Either support them with better clues, or stick to something like “Older” and “Newer”. Thank you.

Pinterest is a nicely packaged solution to a common problem I’ve had in the past with bookmarking. After I bookmark a page in my browser or on Evernote, I very rarely actually re-visit these pages. Maybe they’re really not as interesting as I initially thought, or the concept of “out of sight, out of mind” applies. Pinterest takes the simple, traditional idea of a pin board (when have I ever actually used one in real life? Maybe once, or twice, in the 90′s) and translates it to fit our digital lifestyles on the intarwebz.

Historically, Tumblr has been the platform of choice for visual-centric niches – namely, anything related to design or fashion. Pinterest’s method of collating “pinned” images in sets and collections makes it so much easier to browse through chunks of them without needing to scroll forever or press “next 5″ x 100. The ability to create different board is fantastic for those of us who are OCD about organization :) And overall, it’s a great place to discover new ideas and find inspiration, although the popular ones do get repeated quite often.

One of my favorite aspects of individual pin pages is that they reference 1. who you repinned from (if applicable) and 2. the original source of the image. No more clicking through seemingly endless trails of reblogs a la Tumblr, only to arrive at the original post and find that there’s no source listed /fail

Naturally, there’s still plenty of room for improvement – for example, it’s difficult to find new people to follow. While they provide suggestions when you sign up based on the list of interests you provide, it’s not very easy to find new people after that. A separate recommendations section based on pins that you’ve liked/repinned or people you already follow would be helpful in this instance.

It’ll be interesting to see how brands utilize this service – it’d be silly for them to not take advantage of targeting such a concentrated group of users with overlapping interests in design, decoration, crafts, cooking, traveling… and the list could go on and on.

TL;DR: Pinterest has won me over – I’m a fan!

We decided to start our cleanse on Tuesday, so our 3-day supply of juices was delivered on Monday night by a chipper and friendly guy, who had actually just finished his own cleanse (and was from Fresno – central valley represent!). Since Chin didn’t have much free space in her fridge, days 2 & 3 of her juices were also delivered to my apartment, which resulted in this:

The juices come in cute jars with individual labels that display ingredient information, special instructions (mostly for teas, which taste better when hot), and numbers so you know what order to take them in. Each day consists of 8 juices, which can vary from season to season. For the summer cleanse, we had lemon-lime cayenne, green juice (x2), green pea soup, vanilla almond milk, watermelon apple lime, hibiscus tea and lavender tea. Everything was really tasty, including the green juices – and this is coming from someone who hates parsley & celery with a passion.

I didn’t get as hungry as I thought I would during these three days. Due to the amount of liquid consumed through these juices (and lots of water, too), my stomach was pretty full for most of the day. On the CAN CAN site, there’s a list of permissible eats, in case you’re really starving or feel lightheaded.

The first day was the easiest, since it was a novel process. I had a few stomach cramps, most likely because my stomach isn’t used to consuming healthy and nutritious greens. (MSG, caffeine, greasy foods? Stomach = a-okay. Nutritious raw veggies? Stomach = What are you doing to me?!). My stomach seemed to accept this reality on the second day, and the third day was a breeze. Over the course of three days, I did eat one apple and a few almonds (from the permissible eats list), which to be honest, I actually could have gone without.

Would I do it again? Definitely! I felt lighter and energized on the last day, and the cleanse gave me time to reflect on my eating habits and revise for the future. Teresa, the owner/founder, was super sweet and helpful in answering all of our questions pre-cleanse and during the cleanse. She also sent out cheery and supportive emails on each day of the cleanse, which was a nice touch :) Doing the cleanse with a friend was great since we could support each other, especially during times of temptation like Taco Tuesday and Beer + Breadsticks Thursday.

If you live in or near San Francisco and are contemplating a cleanse, I highly recommend CAN CAN! Check out their website for more information: CAN CAN Cleanse

Here’s the photo for this week’s challenge – Entrance:

This photo was taken inside the chapel at the beautiful Hotel Monestario in Cusco, Peru.

Despite these slight inconveniences, that apartment does still have a special place in my heart. Here’s a (fairly noisy) shot of the 1950′s gas-range stove, which contained very helpful cooking time tips for dishes I never made:

(which also happens to match the old-fashioned weekly photo challenge, har har).