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A project to make businesses more aware of their customer experience, and how to fix it. By Mark Hurst. |
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Broken: JetBlue order form
Leanne Waldal writes:
With my system fonts set to large -- I have bad vision and can't deal with the font sizes that Web developers force on me -- notice that the day of the week for the first step of the reservation system is cut off. The date is actually july 11, not july 1 as it appears. I reported this to JetBlue in May (via their website form) but never heard anything back and they still haven't fixed the problem.
Broken: Shop sign
Joel Varney sends us this sign outside a stationery store in Palo Alto, CA. He writes, "I was so interested in figuring out why I shouldn't touch it that I didn't notice the primary message."
Broken: CD burner installer
In this column, Cody B. writes about faulty navigation in the installer of a CD-burning application:
What button do you click to install PrimoCD? The one on the right looks like a good choice; it seems to suggest "continue". But the program exited. Restarting the setup program and holding the mouse pointer over the right-hand icon, I noted that, in fact, its tooltip read "Exit the browser"!
Broken: Subway safety sign
John Payne points out this example from the New York City subway system:
These signs can be found throughout the NYC subway system when construction is going on. I've always thought it was funny that, to the user, the first sign is really just a setup for the second sign (so people know what RCA means). And somehow, despite the two large yellow signs, people still don't get it!
Broken: (and fixed) Los Angeles highway sign
Shelley Ross points out this intriguing story: a Los Angeles resident got so tired of a faulty highway sign, missing the mention of I-5 North, that he installed it himself. Here's a video.
Also detailed on this page (scroll down to the article):
For years, Richard Ankrom, 46, knew that the word "NORTH" should have been included over an emblem for Interstate 5, two miles before the exit from the Harbor Freeway.Finally, last August, Akrom went to work donning a hard hat and orange reflective vest to avoid raising suspicion. His pickup truck had a logo on the side that read: Aesthetic De Construction.
Broken: BuyMusic.com album page
Charles Rubin points out this album page at BuyMusic.com (click to zoom in):
At first you see that you can buy individual tracksThe page says both that you can and can not buy individual tracks. See live page on BuyMusic.com here.I get excited to buy an individual track
There are no individual tracks
Update: Cody B. points out another major flaw in BuyMusic.com - it only allows Windows users running Internet Explorer into the site. Whoever heard of browser requirements just for the privilege of looking at a home page?
Broken: Post office doors
Matt Youell writes:
These are two shots taken at the post office in Carmichael, CA. (For clarity, these are a pair of one-way doors at the front of the building.)
I'd like to think that the problem is obvious. Just in case, I'll point out that the Do-Not-Enter/Do-Not-Exit doors both have pull-handles for your convenience. But hey, at least they're consistent.
Broken: Ferry boat name
Sandra Dainora took this picture from her Palm handheld. She writes:
The ferry that takes tourists back from the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island to Manhattan is called "Miss New Jersey." Countless times I have watched person after person ask the boat crew whether their final destination was actually Battery Park [in Manhattan, essentially in the opposite direction from New Jersey].Update: A couple of readers have written in with the same response - "the ferry's name is quite apt -- that's the boat you need to take if you want to 'miss New Jersey.'"Not a good experience for out-of-towners - or in-towners, for that matter. I personally had the same moment of doubt when I stepped onto the boat.
Broken: Magazine subscription card
Paul Schreiber sends in his coworker's rant:
Both these subscription cards came from two copies of the June 2003 issue of MacWorld magazine.Broken: Penalizing repeat customers.The top one ($34.97/year) was in the issue I subscribe to.
The bottom one ($19.97/year) was in the newsstand issue.
Broken: Just for fun
Jason Kottke writes about a good experience - about how to create an experience that customers can trust. All from a Manhattan donut guy.
Broken: CD in magazine
John Cady writes:
The July issue of Wired came with a CD-ROM advertising the new DaimlerChrysler Crossfire. I popped the CD into my computer for a look. The CD installed itself into my startup program so that now, whenever I turn on my computer, it launches this ad which takes some time to close. They've hijacked my computer! What's worse is that I can't find the new program anywhere to uninstall it. You can bet my next car won't be Dodge, Chrysler, Plymouth, Mercedes, or Maybach.Update: John reports that after running AdWare, the offending startup is now gone.
Update 7/21: Joel Rome writes that "Another problem with the CD was that much of its 'content' was links to pages on Chrysler's web site. At least one of those links is no longer working. And I tried the CD the same day I received the magazine in the mail. I thought of you as I threw the CD in the trash."
Broken: URL in print ad
Brent Hardinge spotted an Audi print ad with unfortunate placement of its website URL. It's right beside the tagline, "Never follow." Oops.
Broken: interface: Error message
David Broschinsky points out this strange error msg (click to zoom in). He notes: "I can change the settings, but can't see them?"
Broken: For fun
(for those dedicated readers over the weekend): "Broken" sports commercials. ESPN.com readers' least favorites.
Update Aug 2, 2004: The ESPN site no longer contains that page.
Broken: Application error message
Theis Søndergaard writes:
This screenshot is from our own administration module for orders and payments. It has been corrected :)
Broken: Highway signs
Two today from Amy Dalton in Pittsburgh, PA.
First picture: Which direction would you turn to get onto highway 19? (Hint: You guessed wrong. Click to see the larger image.)
Second picture: Can you imagine trying to figure this out at 60 miles an hour (100 kph)?
Broken: Sign on wall jack
Paul Schreiber took this photo at the Vancouver airport recently.
Sometimes if you need a sign at all, it's a flag that something is broken..
Broken: Shoe-sale racks
Kathy Setzer from Frog Design writes: Retailers almost always rack their sale shoes from smallest size (at the top) to largest size (at the bottom). The problem? Those of us women with small feet tend to have the short legs to match! So we stand on tip toes and crane our necks to see the bargains in our sizes while presumably taller women bend farther down to retrieve their sale shoes from the rack.
Broken: Sign at a conference
Eve Andersson saw this sign in at a 1999 conference for 1,300 process consultants at a global consulting firm.
(Hint: http://)
Broken: Broken weather websites
fixed!
Update, July 21: Both Yahoo Weather and Weather.com have fixed the behavior detailed in our July 3 post (see below). As of July 21, searching for "New York City" on either site takes the user directly to the New York weather page.
To the teams at Yahoo Weather and Weather.com... thanks for the fix! Nice work.
Original July 3 post: Both Weather.com (pointed out by Ryan Olshavsky) and Yahoo Weather (I found) have trouble with their search results.
Search Weather.com for "San Francisco" and you'll be asked if you mean the one in Argentina. Search on "San Francisco, CA" and you get the same question: do you mean the "San Francisco, CA" in Argentina?
Search Yahoo Weather for "New York City" and you get (as we say in Manhattan) bupkus. Only a list of possible cities, and not one of them is New York City. (Click on the images to zoom in.)
Broken: Dangerous intersections
Found on the State Farm site: the 10 most dangerous intersections in the U.S. Photos aren't as damning as you might expect, but I'd guess their list is accurate, since they have data on where the most crashes occur.
(Click the image to zoom in.)
Broken: Airport sign
From Chicago's Midway Airport... Mordechai Rosner couldn't find the information center, until he finally found it under this broken sign - a chilling example of what happens when users aren't accounted for in the design process. He writes, "even signage needs a proofreader!"