Wednesday, February 28, 2007
bad practice
In the afternoon, I decided to order a £500 laptop – but when I tried to log-in [on a page that carried the message “Hi Alan, welcome back”] the same email and password returned the message: "Sorry, but we couldn't sign you in. You may have entered the wrong email address or password. Please try one of the options below.”
So I clicked on the 'forgot your password?' link [let’s not go down the road of the grammatical accuracy of that question] – which returned a “We couldn't find the email address you entered” message.
So I thought, I know, I’ll re-register. But you guessed it, putting in my email address [you know, the one that they couldn’t find seconds before] – returned a message saying: “Your email address has already been registered”.
Make your mind up Tesco. While you can’t decide whether I exist or not – I’m off to PC World.
Friday, February 23, 2007
annoying practice - iPod
It’s just a small thing, but I was uploading iPod software onto our laptop last night and amongst the many [many] things I had to complete was a registration to the iPod whatever it was [it took so long the will to live was ebbing away]. It asked for a password – so I put one in. Then after completing the form the password was rejected because it had to be a certain length and use certain characters.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
puzzling practice - Bud.tv complaints
I just read a report [from the USA] that says that in nearly half the States' officials want to ban Anheuser-Busch's new online channel - Bud.tv. Although the site requires visitors to complete a form stating name, birth date and ZIP code [which is then checked against third party information], opponents argue that children can easily enter the details of an adult [eg, a parent] and so have access to the alcohol advertising on the site.
Well durrr - I suppose all under 21s in America leave the room when a beer ad comes on TV, or closes their eyes when driving past an alcohol-related billboard [particularly problematic if they are driving at the time]. Prevent child access to adult-sites? Yes, definitely. Try to stop them seeing beer ads, a much bigger issue than blaming it on web accessibility.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
bad practice - KLM
So why do they keep sending me email promotions for flights from Heathrow?
The upshot of this poor targeting is that I [and most other recipients] will get into the habit of simply deleting all emails from KLM [or cancelling their ‘opt-in’ to receive them in the first place]. As a result I might (a) miss important messages [eg change of flight times] or, (b) relevant ones [eg flights from Newcastle airport].