I was just signing up for a conference, and the registration form had a couple “usability” problems.
First, it asked me for my zip+4. I don’t know what it is. I had to get a piece of mail addressed to me to find out.
Why would you do that? How many people actually know their zip+4?
Second, it asked for my fax number. Again, I don’t know it off the top of my head. I have to consult my business card.
Third, there was no indication of which fields were required and which were optional, so I didn’t know if I had to go look up my fax number.
Greg Krehbiel Uncategorized
I’m in the market for a dishwasher, so I thought I’d go to consumer reports and see which ones are the best.
I tried to sign up for their service and I got an error on the registration page. When you sign up you have to “create an account” with a username and password, and passwords on consumerreports.org have to be all lowercase.
This is a stupid mistake. Why limit your customer’s choice in creating a password?
I’ve developed a little algorithm I use to create passwords on websites. It helps me remember a secure password for each site. But sometimes it requires an uppercase letter.
So Consumer Reports lost my sale because of their silly password policy.
The lesson is simple — don’t restrict password options!
Then I wanted to send them a note telling them about this so they could fix it. But I couldn’t find a “contact us” page, or any way to send them an email.
That’s two mistakes.
They may know a lot about dishwashers, but their web team needs some help.
Greg Krehbiel Uncategorized
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