Timing is Everything

I love my Kindle. When I got it years back it was a revelation. I had never much thought of myself as a reader but the Kindle taught me that I love reading--I just didn't much care for books (sorry, booklovers.) While there are definitely some things I miss about paper books, like being able to easily flip back and refer to previous pages, by and large I think the Kindle is a brilliantly-designed device and I love reading on it. Here are just a few of the reasons why:

• It's comfortable in one hand, and it doesn't matter which hand

• It's the same size regardless of what you're reading--no more giant new-release hardcovers weighing you down

• It eliminates the awkwardness of holding a lopsided book when you're just starting or just finishing

• It's immersive. Experientially it's not a 'device' at all; it's a book. If I did my reading on an iPad I'd be endlessly distracted. The Kindle only does reading, and I love that about it because reading demands focus

• The battery lasts so long it hardly feels like a piece of technology at all

There is one thing that I really don't like though, and it's the low battery notification. The battery lasts for weeks, so I rarely think about charging it. I am also rarely on a screen that displays battery life--I'm just reading away and when you're reading, all you see is the book text. So the only time I think to charge it is when I see this note pop up, and every time I see it I groan:

Problem is I get this message when the Kindle is very close to dying. So in that moment (which is usually in bed) I have to decide whether to keep reading and hope it doesn't die, or get out of bed to get the charger and plug it in. Given the long battery life I'd love to get this message when I have a few days of reading left, so I can choose when to charge it.

It's clear so much thought was put into the design of this product; I wonder if when designing this warning, they considered what it would be like to receive it?

The Bottom Button

Seinfeld famously began and ended with a thoughtful discussion on the importance of a dress shirt's second button (it "literally makes or breaks the shirt.") While I do totally agree with him, I also believe that the bottom button--specifically the bottom button hole--is an unsung hero of clever design.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes the bottom button hole is vertical like all the rest of them, but every so often it's horizonal? I always wondered why until the the other day. I was admittedly struggling a little bit to unfasten the second button from the bottom, having a hard time getting the angle just right. Eventually I got it and I happened to notice that after that struggle, the bottom button came open like a dream. "That's odd," I thought, until it hit me: the bottom button hole is horizontal so that it's easier to open and close. This angle makes total sense since you're coming at it from the top vs. from the side, as with the upper buttons.

What a wonderful example of someone putting thought into something that makes our lives ever-so-slightly easier, even though we may never notice.

Now the only question is why they don't put the one above it at a diagonal...