2012-01-05 17:46:23.191727+00 by petronius 2 comments
In the warm afterglow of recent holiday shopping, a few words about bad checkout page interfaces. My pet peeve? Credit card number entry that doesn't say whether or not you need the spaces between digit groups.
[ related topics: Consumerism and advertising Interface issues ]
comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment Re: made: 2012-01-05 18:20:21.388852+00 by: Dan Lyke
How about credit card number entry that cares which mechanism you use? Sheesh, it's 2012, every language on the planet has some relatively fast version of s/[^\d]//g.
And he does mention "don't wipe everything out if I click the back button to make changes", but this should be seared with lasers across the retinas of every single freakin' travel web site designer ever, from 511.org to Amtrak: It should be easy for me to investigate various different travel itineraries. To say "what if I traveled 50 minutes later?", or "what if I went from Richmond rather than Martinez?".
Aaand, shopping carts which call "0" an illegal quantity, rather than deleting the item from my cart. And then make me hunt around for another way to delete that item from my cart.
Bastards.
#Comment Re: made: 2012-01-05 19:55:17.770576+00 by: petronius
another problem with backing up during checkout is the sneaking suspicion that even if you back up the original order is going through, not only to the warehouse but to MasterCard.
My brother works for customer service at Cobra Electronics in Chicago, selling GPS, walkie-talkies and radar detectors. Durign the Xmas rush they tried using a Groupon deal on radar detectors, and sold 10,000 in one day, both over the phone and online. Fortunately,they had 30,000 in stock, but then problems came in. First, the system could not handle the inrush, and was on the ragged edge of crashing all day. Customers complained they couldn't get order conformations. The worst thing that happened was that at least 800 people got more than one radar detector. Only three people called back to ask how to return the extra one.