Dept. of Minor Observations
A repository of bulletins, field reports, working papers, and notices concerning small thoughts, odd details, internet archaeology, abandoned drafts, and gentle critiques of modern digital culture. Items are classified, stamped, and filed accordingly.
On the persistence of the loading spinner
The loading spinner has become the universal symbol of a deferred form of hope. Unlike its predecessor, the progress bar, the spinner commits to nothing specific — no hint of duration, no point of completion, not even effort. It just rotates, endlessly suggesting that something is happening somewhere, for someone (maybe you), for resolution at some indeterminate point in the near future.
We all accept this. We have made it our screensaver. We have made it our mantra. The spinner does not promise delivery - it just promises that there is some sort of process happening, even if it is just the process of your own waiting. It is the most honest interface element ever designed.
On websites that no longer know what they are
Field observation, site visited: a local restaurant's homepage. The homepage contains a full-screen video of food being eaten in slow motion. There is no menu visible. There is no address. There is a button that says "Experience."
Further investigation revealed that the experience in question is a £14 pasta dish.
This is not an isolated case. A growing number of commercial websites adopt the visual language of luxury brands, concept art and annual reports. They know what they want to look like. But they are no longer sure what they are for.
The Department has logged this pattern under the provisional heading: aesthetic capture.
Notice to readers of "Best Practices" documentation
The Department has observed that the phrase "best practice" appears with high frequency in technical documentation, style guides and internal memos.
Readers are advised that this phrase reliably indicates one of the following:
1. Practices that were considered reasonable by the author at the time of writing.
2. Practices that were favoured at the author's previous employer.
3. Practices that were immediately adopted to avoid a specific past incident that no one wishes to discuss.
4. No specific practice at all, but written with a strong conviction that there ought to be one.
The Department recommends asking which of the above choices applies before adopting the practice in question.
On the archaeology of old personal websites
The Wayback Machine preserves them all. Personal websites from the late 1990s and early 2000s, with their tiled backgrounds images, visitor counters and "Under Construction" GIFs that offer a hinted view of the future that never quite arrived.
What strikes the contemporary visitor is not the aesthetic — even though the aesthetic is indeed striking — but the deep-seated sincerity. These were pages about things people actually cared about, it ranged from their cat and their band to their strong opinions about a television programme. There was no strategy. There was no audience. There was just a person with something they wanted to say and even technical knowledge to put it down in HTML.
The Department is not suggesting we return to tiled backgrounds. The Department is asking where did the sincerity go and can it be recovered without the table-based layout.
On cables that are still in the drawer
Every household in the developed world contains at least one drawer
with cables in it. As least some of these cables connect to nothing currently owned. Their
original devices are gone — upgraded, broken, donated or just lost
— but the cables remain, because throwing away a cable feels premature and wasteful.
The cable might be needed. The device it connected to might miraculously return, or
a new device might require exactly this cable or someone might ask to borrow
it. The cable is kept against a future that never arrives.
The Department notes that this is not irrational. It is, in fact, a
reasonable response to a world in which standards change faster than our own
habits. The drawer is an act of faith. Keep it. The Department respects it.
On menus that are now QR codes in restaurants
The laminated menu was a permanent object. It accumulated stains and
small tears and the occasional sticker with a handwritten amendment in biro on top. It could be
read without power. It could be handed to a child. It could be studied
at length without performing the act of studying it.
The QR menu loads, or does not load, depending on the strength of signal, battery life and functioning websites. It
refreshes. It requires both hands. It cannot be propped against the
condiments while one eats.
The Department does not oppose progress in restaurant technology. The
Department is noting that the laminated menu solved several problems
that are now, once again, not solved.
Field notes on hold music
Hold music serves a precise psychological function. It confirms that
the line is still connected. A silent hold would be dangerously indistinguishable from a
disconnected call. The music is not entertainment; it is the only evidence of an ongoing connection.
What is of interest to the Department is the choice of music. Organisations
that would spend multiple pounds and many months deliberating over a logo will select their hold music from a convenient list, delegating the decision to whoever
created and manages the telephone system. The result is often vague jazz with no particular provenance, or a classical piece that is inoffensiveness rather than
being of any quality.
Calculating the total time spent on hold, this music is, for the majority, the most time they will ever spend in direct sensory contact with the organisation. The Department
considers that this worth noting.
On the persistence of the fax number
A significant number of institutional, medical, and legal forms still
contain a field for a fax number. The fax machine has not been common
in domestic use for over two decades. Many, if not most, offices no longer own one.
Yet the field remains. In some places, a fax number is even legally required
for certain submissions. In others, the form was designed when fax
numbers were common and has not been updated because the form still works,
in the sense that all the other fields still apply.
The Department observes how long administrative forms can outlast the
technologies they were designed to accommodate with a high degree of regularity.
The field persists as a kind of fossil — evidence of an earlier
environment, preserved in the sediment of a PDF that no one has
opened to edit since 2009.
On software that remembers your preferences and then doesn't
Every application that can be configured promises to remember your
preferences. Some keep this promise. Others remember preferences for a
period of months and then, following an update, return to defaults
with no explanation.
We re-configure the application. The preferences are saved.
Some time later, they are gone again.
This is not a technical failure. It is experienced as
a character trait. The software is forgetful, in ways we can all
be forgetful, and in ways that seem almost
personal.
The Department notes that this attribution of character to
software is both irrational and entirely understandable.
On streets that are named after things that are no longer there
Mill Road. Forge Lane. Orchard Close. Tannery Court. Bakehouse Close.
These street names record a working landscape that has been entirely
replaced by the streets themselves. The mill is gone, the road remains,
still named after it. The forge, the tannery, the
bakehouse, all gone. The orchard is definitely no longer close. Sometimes these have not been there for centuries.
The Department finds this form of accidental memorial curious. No
one decided to commemorate these things. The names were once functional
then they became decorative and now they are historical without having
any history. The landscape is annotated, if you give it
enough time.