Will one of you usability guys out there get to work on advent calendars? They’re a total pain: the little windows are basically impossible to open without bending the main structure of the thing all over the place, even if you have decent nails, which neither Niamh nor I do. Tom has a flashy wooden one with drawers, which looks very pretty but seems to take some of the mystique out of it for me. I made an advent calendar for Sam, years ago, so that I could put decent chocolates in it rather than horrible ones pressed into a piece of plastic, and it was a disaster. Of course, that might be my ham-fistedness rather than something inherently wrong with the concept. Please don’t suggest that the solution here is to buy decent advent calendars: I’m not paying, like, ten pounds for an advent calendar. I’m just not. The ordinary ones should be easy to open. I can’t think of a way to do this, though. Could be a niche in the market here!
And this is Advent calendar usability, written , and concerning Rants
Comments
Bill
G.
But the ones you buy are cheap for a reason! The power of market forces, dude.
Tom
Lynne also makes one each year, so we have another one consisting of 24 specially cut and sewn stockings containing Quality Street. Previous ones have included plastic bottles cut in half and stuck on to a painted cardboard Christmas tree and a three foot carboard bauble with 24 boxes stacked behind it: take the day’s box away and the next one falls down. Then there was the large cardboard cow made out a Dell box with a Santa hat on…
Jon Hicks
I know the bending problem. You bend the back, and suddenly all the doors pop open! Even the expensive ones do this!
S
Maybe you should try Caltime advent calendars – they are neither expensive or cheap. The card is good quality – I’m not sure if they sell direct their e-mail is info@clatime.co,uk
Scratch Cards! The Chavs’d love ‘em.