The Heroes season premiere was on this past Monday.  It was fantastic, as you might expect if you watched last season. 

One thing caught my attention:  At one point, Hiro Nakamura calls his hero, Takezo Kensei, a gaijin.  From what I understand, that means something close to “foreign devil.”  Why did I note that?

Back in April, while I was in New York for the SES conference, my friend took me to a great little Japanese restaurant.  We sat down, got a few beers and he ordered for us.  Side note: I hate ordering at restaurants and I will eat anything, so my ideal restaurant is one where they just bring you things they think you will like.

Here’s how my friend’s conversation with the waitress went: 

     Friend: We’ll have one of these (pointing to the menu)

     Waitress: No, I don’t think you want that (say what!?!)

     Friend:  The gaijin (me) will eat anything!

     Other diners around us:  Laughing out loud.

     Waitress: OK (looking distressed).

A few minutes later, the waitress delivered our food.  What was this mystery item?  Seaweed in vinegar. 

Now, vinegar is one of the few things that I really, truly dislike.  And this wasn’t your garden-variety approachable seaweed.  It was fermented, gooey and dripping.  Anyway, with that kind of build-up what was I going to do?  Luckily I still had plenty of beer left.   With my Kirin Ichiban chaser, I finished the seaweed and moved on to a fantastic meal.

This reminds me of what I’ve seen happen so many times on the web.  In designing sites and landing pages we’re tempted to give users hundreds of choices.  We’re tempted to “leave it up to the user” to decide what they want to do.  But, that’s not right at all.  If you don’t want people to choose the seaweed, don’t offer the seaweed.  When it comes to your website, you’re the host.  Be a good one.