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70 of 365: First visit to Agricola

Agricola Pears (agricolaeatery.com)
Agricola Pears (agricolaeatery.com)
Agricola Pears (agricolaeatery.com)
Agricola Pears (agricolaeatery.com)

About Agricola

Agricola, a Princeton based farm-to-plate restaurant, has been here for about a year, and tonight was my first opportunity to visit. Agricola’s own site says “Using fresh local ingredients from our very own Great Road Farm as well as from other neighboring providers, we serve food that brings people together to laugh, share and celebrate. Good food translates to memorable moments and we encourage you to delight in both as we build on the traditions of community, farming and breaking bread with friendly faces.” – See more at: http://www.agricolaeatery.com/about#sthash.GjY5qtT3.dpuf

Atmosphere and vibe

When you walk into the restaurant, it is inviting and uses natural elements in the architecture to remind you that artificiality isn’t welcomed. You are greeted by bare wooden beams, masonry, and other natural elements that show the naturalistic and holistic approach to the food. It’s warm, the atmosphere is friendly, and the vibe is communal. You are invited to sit among other diners to enjoy your meal.

Service

Every person you speak to on staff is knowledgeable, kind, and service-oriented. I did not ask a question that was not answered in a rewarding way. This is not the only place that this happens in Princeton, as we are blessed with great service in this town, as might be expected. However, it did not disappoint.

What we had

I planned to visit with a friend, and we decided to have drinks and dinner on a relatively warm summer day. It was cool upon entry, and had adequate spaces for gathering a party. I was quickly welcomed upon entry and invited to sit while I waited. When my friend arrived, we were seated quickly. The choices were a single page of delicious descriptions, filled with real food, local choices, and great variety, despite brevity. The menu for dinner follows:

Kale salad

We shared a kale salad with carrot ribbons, radishes, toasted pumpkin seed vinaigrette. It tasted distinctly of parmesan, and had great texture and freshness.

Grits with Salsa Verde

The Castle Valley Mills Creamy Grits with Salsa Verde was delicious, creamy, and had a great mouthfeel. Not very sweet or overly salty, as it is too often served. The Salsa verde added a nice break to the potentially heavy bowl.

Summer Squash Flatbread

The main dish was a wood-fired piazzetta with purple potatoes, wild garlic salsa verde, house-made ricotta. The vegetables, as throughout the meal, were al dente and allowed to have some resistance. The ricotta bordered on feta in its bite, but was crumbled and certainly not overwhelming.

Drinks

Agricola has a full bar, which is uncommon in Princeton. More importantly, they have very good beer in bottles and on tap. Tonight, we had Lagunitas IPA and Left Hand’s Stout. It’s hard to go wrong in pairing with choices like those.

Conclusion

To be perfectly honest, I had heard some less-than-praise comments about the food at Agricola, but I found none of it to be true. I would recommend it to anyone who appreciates real food, and I consider it a new favorite not only in Princeton, but in general. Well done.

Details

Agricola Community Eatery

Eleven Witherspoon Street

Princeton, New Jersey 08542

telephone +1 (609) 921 2798 info@agricolaeatery.com

– See more at:

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65 of 365: A library design problem solved, perhaps.

nowhere placemark geolocation by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
nowhere placemark geolocation by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
nowhere placemark geolocation by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
nowhere placemark geolocation by John LeMasney via lemasney.com

I was alerted to Toby Greenwalt’s great blog theanalogdivide by Sophie Brookover of Library Link NJ, in which Toby just proposed a series of design problems as they relate to libraries. I love a good design problem. Here he introduces the first problem, and below I answer it in my own way.

“Your first challenge? Create a online library card signup.   You could say that signing up for a library card is our equivalent of what websites refer to as onboarding – the process with which a user becomes part of that site. Sites invest significant work-hours and enormous sums of money to make this process as appealing as possible?

Libraries? Not so much. Whether through requiring in-person visits, confusing policy, or resorting to PDFs, libraries tend to get in their own way when it comes to attracting new users. We can do better than this. I’d like to use this inaugural Challenge to prove it.

Your criteria:

  • Design a workflow that a hypothetical user would use to sign up for your hypothetical library. You’ll need to use this design to address the issue of proving residency.
  • If there’s a policy that needs to be set in order to make your design work, you’ll need to explain that policy.
  • Any medium is OK. Pencil-and-paper. Google Form. Flowchart. Photoshop mockup. Working prototype.
  • If you draw inspiration from somewhere, cite your sources. I’d love to hear a bit about your process.
  • You must have your design published by Monday, May 5th. Remember to email me (toby at theanalogdivide dot com) with the link. If you don’t have your own web space, feel free to send me the design and I’ll publish it here.”

~ theanalogdivide » Blog Archive » The Librarian Design Challenge –

So my answer is as follows:

  1. Advertise a shortened URL (via whatever advertising channels you wish) to a Google Form in which you allow a new patron to fill out a form. Form logic should require all required fields, such as full name, address, email, and phone number, etc. If payment is required, payment information can also be collected, but should occur later in the process, after address is verified.
  2. As you may or may not know, all google forms publish results to a spreadsheet, which can be exported to a CSV for use in a mail merge.
  3. Daily or weekly, a mail merge can be used to create mailable postcards with a unique code (autogenerated) that is sent to the address of the new patron.
  4. A patron who receives the postcard at the indicated address will submit the code and payment information to a second URL (encrypted) if any payment is required. The code validation reasonably proves residence to the degree that this is possible through electronic means.
  5. Upon code submission and or payment processing, the patron’s new card is mailed out, or made available for pickup, depending on the patron’s preference.

This mimics Google’s own location verification process for business registration listing in Google Places service https://support.google.com/business/answer/2911778?hl=en&visit_id=637299706572194876-2550561397&rd=1).

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57 of 365: A Call to Libraries to Devise Policy Regarding Patron Consumer Devices.

phone by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
phone by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
phone by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
phone by John LeMasney via lemasney.com

I recently had the opportunity via LibraryLinkNJ to speak on the topic of Consumer Device Support in Libraries at several of their Tech Speed Dating gatherings, in which librarians from across the state of New Jersey come together to learn about the technologies they might love. It is a platform for dissemination of new technologies and best practices, but also potentially a place to introduce an idea. My idea: New library policy documents about the support for Consumer Devices in Libraries. Please take a look at this document, and use it as you wish, as it is Creative Commons – Attribution licensed. If you use it as is, you need do nothing. If you decide to change it, please mention that is was by John LeMasney via lemasney.com and thanks!

[gdoc link=”https://docs.google.com/document/d/14LSmZ_oCL6EekWkCGnT7JKVQDqdfU8fWVFEiRiyBP9M/edit?usp=sharing” width=”600″]

 

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27 of 365: Convergence design principle

27 of 365 - Convergence design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
27 of 365 - Convergence design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
27 of 365 - Convergence design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
27 of 365 – Convergence design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com

“Natural or human-made systems that best approximate optimal strategies afforded by the environment tend to be successful, while systems exhibiting lesser approximations tend to become extinct. This process results in the convergence of form and function over time. The degree of convergence in an environment indicates its stability and receptivity to different kinds of innovation.” ~ Universal Principles of Design via http://my.safaribooksonline.com/book/-/9781592535873/convergence/66

 

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26 of 365: Control #design principle

26 of 365 - Control design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
26 of 365 - Control design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
26 of 365 - Control design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
26 of 365 – Control design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com

Good control design in a system allows for the ease of use for new users (beginners) or complex, customizable use by seasoned users (experts).  A new or inexperienced user of a system will benefit from fewer options, and a simple interface, where an expert user benefits from a customizable, flexible interface that offers more direct access to the functions they use most. Some systems, such as public kiosks, should assume that most users will be new ones, since anyone with ability in that same environment probably has a more dedicated interface to use than the kiosk, e.g. an employee computer.

In this illustration, I’m showing how I designed control on a consulting project using WordPress by offering an interface with both beginner and expert controls.

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