Lousy User Experiences

Being a product manager, I can’t help but notice good and bad user experiences everywhere. Here are a few recent instances of some bad ones:

Restaurant Special Menu. This weekend, I went to a french restaurant and they had a special menu written on a small chalk board above the bar. We were sitting at the edge of the bar so it was difficult angle to read the menu. Some items were written in french which made it more difficult to understand. I had to lean back on my stool and squint my eyes to make out what the menu said. If you’re sitting at a table facing away from the menu, then you’d have to uncomfortably turn your body to read the menu.
Aha! Aha is a software solution used to plan and organize your product roadmap. My company uses it to record customer feature requests. The software itself is pretty clunky and hard to use. One of my colleagues asked for access to Aha! and it took me ten minutes to figure out how to invite him. I tried inviting him but instead it created a record for his profile (I don’t even know what this means). He then realized he had access to the platform all along.
Mink Oil. Last week, I bought some Mink Oil to help restore and protect my Timberland boots. I was in my basement, my timbs unlaced in front of me ready for some treatment. I read the instructions on the back and it said that I needed a sponge to apply the oil on my boots. I opened the container and there was no sponge inside. This was a bit frustrating for me. Now, I needed to buy a sponge from the convenient store. It would’ve been great if maybe there was a sponge in the container already.