3 Common UX Gaffes and Ways Around Them

Originally published at: http://www.sitepoint.com/3-common-ux-gaffes-ways-around/

A while back, I tried to sign up for Venmo, a service that promises to simplify online payments between individuals. I say tried because it turned out Venmo was US-only. This limitation, however, revealed some critical UX flaws I’ve seen in other websites before. All three flaws I’ll discuss in this post are incredibly easy to fix, and as such I’m often surprised at how long some companies take to fix them. Let’s go through them one by one.

Note that while I will be using Venmo as a case study in this post, they’re not alone in making these slip-ups — these issues apply to a wide range of other websites and services too.

Continue reading this article on SitePoint
2 Likes

As always, I enjoy your posts Bruno!

Just one thing, you are right about informing users about their chances to become customers or not due to their location, but locking them completely out of the site would be a wrong step to do IMHO (not sure if you actually meant that either). There are two reasons: For a travelling customer, who might be outside the U.S., the ability to continue to use the service should be possible. You don’t want to lock your customers out of your service, just because they are travelling. :smile:

The second reason is just for the information. Even though you might be outside of the U.S., it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to inform yourself about the service. For instance, this page should still be available to read for anyone outside the U.S. https://venmo.com/about/product/

So yes, do warn a guest about their inability to join, because the service is only available in the U.S. only and base that decision on GEOIP or any other methods, but I say don’t block the access completely. :slight_smile:

Scott

1 Like

Much obliged! :smile:

Nope, I meant one should simply warn users, not block them altogether. For example, Pandora does this awfully - they block their site almost completely to non-US visitors. My solution would entail something as simple as horizontal bar at the top of the page, or a nice, user friendly warning. In fact, they do have one (if you paste in +5555555 as the number), but it’s malfunctioning - that one would be quite enough.

The website should most definitely stay accessible to all and should be able to convey information, but the service should be gently restricted.

1 Like

Using a placeholder of the correct format in the telephone field will alert the user as to exactly which format the field wants the phone number entered.

CC fields should be this way too, and prevent us from needless retyping as we figure out if spaces or dashes are acceptable or not.

If no placeholders, then a legend about each would be appreciated if the format needs to be exact.

1 Like

I had a similar problem to #1 on (I believe) a website that required an account to use. I created one using Facebook, was able to login using Facebook, but couldn’t delete my account using Facebook. I had to remove the app from Facebook and delete my account on their website. And when I attempted to delete my account on their website, I was required to provide a password. What password? Luckily, I was able to request a “new” password and delete my account, but was still annoyed by the needless step.

Quite right - so simple to make it all user friendly.

Very interesting. This would definitely help many readers. I really enjoyed your stuff.

1 Like

Thanks!

One of my biggest gripes with most sites is the password requirement. 90% of the sites I have signed up for have NO truly private or sensitive information that I supplied. So why does everyone want a password? Wouldn’t an email address be enough to identify someone? I think it is a “computer science” thing. Programmers have been trained that a password is “good”. I am not the only one who uses the same password on every “stupid” site that has none of my sensitive or private information. The Internet really needs to grow up.

Nice article.

2 Likes

Only last night I tried to install flickr on my phone and was given the option of logging in with Facebook. I said OK and then it told me I also needed a Yahoo id etc to get in? Crap, another account/ID and password that I shouldn’t need!

Yeah, the “Sign in with Facebook. Oh, and also a password.” thing is one of my biggest pet peeves for websites. If you were going to ask for a password, I would’ve just signed up the normal way to begin with!