lousy interfaces

[kengr]

The Storage company I deal with has a website you can make payments thru. Or rather, it has one you *used* to be able to make them thru. It hasn't worked for several months at this point.

I made a payment over the phone last month. Did it by talking to the manager.

This month I got hit with a phone menu. A horrible one.

I had to enter my credit card number using the phone keypad. Yeah, 16 digits with no possibility of erasing if you mistype. You doi get prompted for confirmation that you entered it right. Except the audio keeps fading in and out, so I had to reenter it because I missed a prompt. Then you enter the card expiration date. Then the zip code pof the address the card is associated with. then the security code.

All this on a tiny keypad on the phone.

yerg...

Comments

[kengr]

One of my neighbors had bad hand tremors and it made using her tv remote a nightmare. See to switch between the bluray player and cable you had to hit the input(?) button on the remote, then use the arrow buttons to select which input you wanted to use.

Trouble is, there was a timeout. And it was only 10 seconds or so. which meant it took a *lot* of tries for her to change the input

My cell phone "helpfully" darkens the screen after only a short time. and while it's dark it won't send things you type on the keypad. Instead, the first thing you hit turns the screen back on. And then you have to hit the button again to send the number you wanted to send.

The timeout is *just* short enough for the screen to turn off between prompts on a phone menu. And it's not adjustable.

I'd like to take a lot of the guys who design these things and make them watch folks try to use them.