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To those who downvoted this: Do you care to explain? What's wrong with criticizing overly US-centric business? In the world wide web, being more international s

by vog 11y ago

To those who downvoted this: Do you care to explain? What's wrong with criticizing overly US-centric business? In the world wide web, being more international should be good for companies as well as customers. Did I miss something?

hacym 11y ago
I think you miss that most people probably don't see this and say "Damn those US companies for using feet." Get over it?
- vog 11y ago
  I'm not talking about anti-US sentiment. I'm talking about people looking at "10-2,000 ft" and asking themselves "Uggh ... how much was it, again?" Then they google for some unit converter. Then they stumble over "5-lbs", google again, but abort the search and decide it is not worth the trouble. This is simply a bad user experience for the majority of their potential customers.
andrewchambers 11y ago
I'm from a country which uses Kg and meters. I can read the US units no problem.
- vog 11y ago
  I'm also from such a country, and most people I know have trouble with US units, even if their English is pretty good.
- tripzilch 11y ago
  I like to think I'm pretty good at mental arithmetic. Converting feet (0.3) and inches (2.5) are easy enough to do with good accuracy, but lbs requires multiplying the number by 0.45 in your head. Sure I could do that, but it's hardly what I'd call "read the US units no problem", and definitely not something to expect of your general customer base. The other option would be to try and get a mental "feel" for the size of a foot, 10 foot, what's 5 lbs of water look like, etc. I did something like that back when we switched from Dutch Guilders to the Euro, cause I knew it was going to stick around, so keeping a conversion in my head was just holding me back. But with US units, nobody's switching, and further, there's no ubiquity in my IRL day-to-day life of things that are supposed to be exactly 1 lbs, 5 lbs, 1 gallon, 10 foot, etc. to calibrate with. The only time I come into contact with inches is in the abstract space of the Internet, where they mean nothing except a quick mental arithmetic puzzle getting in the way of what I actually want to know.

by vog 11y ago

hacym 11y ago

I think you miss that most people probably don't see this and say "Damn those US companies for using feet." Get over it?

vog 11y ago
I'm not talking about anti-US sentiment. I'm talking about people looking at "10-2,000 ft" and asking themselves "Uggh ... how much was it, again?" Then they google for some unit converter. Then they stumble over "5-lbs", google again, but abort the search and decide it is not worth the trouble. This is simply a bad user experience for the majority of their potential customers.

andrewchambers 11y ago

I'm from a country which uses Kg and meters. I can read the US units no problem.

vog 11y ago
I'm also from such a country, and most people I know have trouble with US units, even if their English is pretty good.
tripzilch 11y ago
I like to think I'm pretty good at mental arithmetic. Converting feet (0.3) and inches (2.5) are easy enough to do with good accuracy, but lbs requires multiplying the number by 0.45 in your head. Sure I could do that, but it's hardly what I'd call "read the US units no problem", and definitely not something to expect of your general customer base. The other option would be to try and get a mental "feel" for the size of a foot, 10 foot, what's 5 lbs of water look like, etc. I did something like that back when we switched from Dutch Guilders to the Euro, cause I knew it was going to stick around, so keeping a conversion in my head was just holding me back. But with US units, nobody's switching, and further, there's no ubiquity in my IRL day-to-day life of things that are supposed to be exactly 1 lbs, 5 lbs, 1 gallon, 10 foot, etc. to calibrate with. The only time I come into contact with inches is in the abstract space of the Internet, where they mean nothing except a quick mental arithmetic puzzle getting in the way of what I actually want to know.