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Previous: Quantity label | Main | Next: Student loan re-payment letter
April 7, 2007 12:03 AM
Broken: Logging off the Citimortgage website
An anonymous reader writes:
When I click "Sign Out" to log off the Citimortgage website, the screen above shows up, asking me whether I want to continue.
Here's a quiz: If I want to sign out, should I click "yes" or "no"?
Answer: According to Citimortgage, anyway, the correct answer is "yes." That's right - clicking "yes" to continue will sign you out.
It's so sad that little mom-and-pop businesses like Citibank don't have enough money to afford basic usability...
For the life of me, I can't tell what the problem is. The form clearly states, "By clicking 'Yes' out below, you will be signed out of the CitiMortgage, Inc. website." The first use of the word "out" is questionable, but it makes perfect sense to me. This is a confirmation dialog; similar to the Windows dialogs that people often click through without reading.
Maybe it's time for thisisbroken to stop being daily? Every once in a while there is indeed something fantastic posted, but it's getting harder and harder to find among the "look at me, I can't read a dialog box" posts.
I guess my submission, at the moment, would be "there's a website called thisisbroken, but half of what's posted isn't even broken!"
There is nothing broken about this. If it is then thousands if not millions of videogames, programs, operating systems, and websights are broken. The point of this is because they find it more convenient to ask for confirmation so you don't accidently lose your work. For example how would you like it if you were writing a twenty page paper for college the was due tomorrow and be for you could print it you accidently permanently deleted it? Would you find it broken then?
Aux10: Except that most such confirmations say "Do you really want to exit?" instead of "Do you want to continue?".
That said, I don't see that this is broken either, but it clearly does have the potential for some confusion, otherwise it wouldn't be posted here.
I wouldn't go so far as to label this as not broken. Ending a session is the opposite of continuing it.
The question is "Do you want to continue." If we read the whole screen (because I'm sure that all of the nay-sayers have read every dialogue, confirmation, and asinine screen of directions ever presented to them by every half-baked application that wants to impose its methodology on them), we see that this means "do you want to continue ending your session" and not "do you want to continue your session".
This thing reeks of it once being just "Session Ending. Do you want to continue?" But someone with half a brain flagged it as confusing and logged a bug report against it. Unfortunately, the person who was resolving it didn't understand the problem, and just added more directions ("by clicking yes out below..." [note the grammatic error]) rather than fix the ambiguity itself.
This is what happens when you outsource your UI development to India.
Not terribly broken, but I always wonder why more companies don't make buttons that tell you explicity what they do.
For example, this one could say, "Log off" and "Continue Banking".
I agree with mmcwatters. This isn't broken, as the "do you want to continue" dialog is standard, and following standards that people are used to is not broken.
This is a perfect example, however, of how the "do not continue" dialog can be confusing at times. Explicitly stating what each button will do is much better. The industry seems to be moving towards that as well. Apple has been doing it for a while now, and Microsoft is just starting to catch on in Windows Vista and Office 2007 (for example, the "do you want to save changes" dialog now contains the buttons "save" and "don't save").
The form clearly states, "By clicking 'Yes' out below, you will be signed out of ...blah blah blah" (blah blah mine)
Good design does not require the user to read paragraphs of instructions before clicking their way out of a simple dialogue warning.
You can say all you want, but in the end it should be simply:
Sign out? [Yes] [No]
Maybe it's time for thisisbroken to stop being daily? Every once in a while there is indeed something fantastic posted, but it's getting harder and harder to find among the "look at me, I can't read a dialog box" posts.
Actually, the real danger of today's s/w development is the "Oh stop complaining. It's such a tiny thing" attitude.
TiB fights that attitude sometimes even in its own users.
And yes, daily.
DavesBrain has nailed it right on the head.
Good design is all about usability. The answer to the question is so unclear that an explanation is required to guide the user to the right choice. That's not good usability.
The fact is that people don't read all the text on web pages, especially stuff like this. And just a moment of thought would have provided simpler wording that would have been self-explanatory as DavesBrain shows.
Let me get this straight... its broken because you have to actually read, at least skim through, a few words at the very beginning?
What is broken is people's expectations of being coddled at every step of their life, and complaining about it when they aren't.
Could the wording have been changed so that the buttons tell you the exact wording of what you are doing, yes (and I have to agree that I would like that) but that does not make what is there broken. I'm going to make a wild guess here and say that the reason a lot of sites use that sort of yes/no button is that its encoding is very standardized, and works very well across most if not all browsers. Changing the buttons would require re-testing them on all sorts of browsers and versions, to make sure they still show up correctly - otherwise you might see an entry on TiB for the buttons being screwed up in whatever browser.
It states very clearly that you will be signed out by clicking yes below... where is the ambiguity in that?
Memnon- so you're priority then is developer "hassle" instead of user experience. The old "we *would* do it best the first time if it wasn't so much work.." argument.
That's fine, but clearly the focus of this blog is *user experience* and not developer experience. Of course, you have to find the balance between the two, and maybe you're right- citibank may have, for whatever reason, figured that the development/testing/localization issues would be more "expensive" (by whatever measure) than properly wording the dialog to avoid confusion
...but they deserve to be called out as a result of that decision, because clearly there are ways to have worded the dialog to remove any doubt. As Carlos, DavesBrain and others stated earlier- the fact that they have to put all that text on the screen shows that the UI wasn't designed very well in the first place.
Also, considering the users mindset at the time, they are done with the session- meaning they've probably already moved on to other issues, desires, wants etc... so having them closely read instructions to something they've stopped caring about (ok- I realize we all care about our banking, but generally speaking) is not the best user experience.
And good, efficient design has nothign to do coddling. In fact, I think it's the opposite.
Well said, Cid73 and DavesBrain.
I think everyone agrees it's not broken, but it certainly could have been better.
Not sure why anyone would be against making things better, but some are.
^ *your* not *you're*
I'd suggest the dialog look like:
****************************
Session Ending:
"your browser could contain...blah...when you have completed your session"
[End Session] [Return to Banking]
****************************
....and ok, so that might take some localization issues into account for buttons. Sorry developers! Do your job.
"Let me get this straight... its broken because you have to actually read, at least skim through, a few words at the very beginning?"
Yes. Exactly. Correct.
The whole point of software and computers is that they are our SLAVES. Yes, slaves - I do not use the term facetiously. If they do not make our lives easier then they are useless - possibly worse than useless.
Software in INFINITELY mutable. The only reason why this software does not make its users' lives easier is because of some lazy (or absent) interaction designer.
"What is broken is people's expectations of being coddled at every step of their life, and complaining about it when they aren't."
What is broken is people who completely dismiss (or simply miss) the principle of good design and yet come to a design blog and complain when other criticize bad design.
I see mmcwaters has said it eloquently:
"Not sure why anyone would be against making things better, but some are."
For me, the bigger question is, why do they require this page? If you clicked on "Log out," why does it not do just that and perhaps show you a confirmation or log out page. Is it really something that could be accidentally done, or that would cause negative effects to your account if you did?
And since when is Citibank a "mom and pop" business? ;)
Okay... I see comments about Citigroup all the time. And I never respond. a) because I didn't work on it, b) because I TOTALLY agree its broken. But I could not resist commenting on this one.
I actually worked on this site. I work for a "division" of Citi -- CitiMortgage. We have a full staff of Usability folks and Interaction designers.
We tested this screen. Citi calls them "bumps" but doesn't even get how ironic that is... Our testing showed time and time again that this was VERY confusing for users. And we fought and fought and fought and fought and fought... to remove it or change the buttons like most people suggested.
But see, Citi has a "legal" department. And apparently what they say goes. We lost...
I guess I just wanted everyone to know that we are there and we try and we know what sucks... but sometimes it is beyond our control. But it frustrates me as much (maybe more) than Users
skirken: What motives does this "legal department" have for not allowing you guys to do your job?
It sounds like you said "you asked me to find out if this was bad, I found out it was bad, I have evidence to prove it is bad, and I am going to fix it so that it is not bad", and they said "no, you must make sure it stays bad".
Legal department interference. Interesting. It was likely due to concerns about liability if a big warning about browser cache and stuff wasn't there with the user forced to actively acknowledge through the action of clicking a button. I've seen this nonsense before, but how likely is the risk of liability?
DavesBrain (very funny name btw, I like it) commented:
"Let me get this straight... its broken because you have to actually read, at least skim through, a few words at the very beginning?"
Yes. Exactly. Correct.
The whole point of software and computers is that they are our SLAVES. Yes, slaves - I do not use the term facetiously. If they do not make our lives easier then they are useless - possibly worse than useless.
ummm, slaves? that's just a weird comment... they are tools intended to make life easier, yes, but slaves.. sheesh.. someone has a God complex going...
It really does amaze me how much people whine about this type of thing... "oh my God, you mean I have to be responsible for my actions? You mean I need to know what I'm clicking on before I click on it?"
If you are the type that is willing to just click on a button without at least tacitly checking what you are doing, then give my your email address and a week or so.. I'll draft up a real nice legal document for you to click a button on that will sign over all of your possessions to me, but I'll make sure the button clearly states "click on this button, nevermind all the rest of the text"
Memnon makes a good point: if you have to think to figure something out, if you want things to be easier, if you want things to work more naturally, YOU are broken. It is better to make things more complicated than they need to be. It's cool and hip and rad and all that.
When my Dad, who's much older and, therefore, a newbie by Memnon's standards, can't figure out what the complicated directions are telling him, he should take the hint: online banking's not for you, pops. We only want people who are willing to spend 15-30 seconds deciphering a log-off screen! Want it easy? Get lost.
Memnon-
People using that site...they are likely are going to be using it more than once right? I mean- someone will log in on a fairly regular basis to check account status etc.
Given that understanding, would it be such a great leap to expect that the user may have read the warning already...and know what its message is, but didn't memorize the Yes/No mapping?
Why not optimize the dialog for those that have read through the dialog already, but don't remember when looking at the screen the "yes/no" mapping?
Having clear, delineated instructions and warnings is *not in any way* mutually exclusive from a good user experience.
Besides, there is already a Citi employee posting here about the frustration with this screen, so stop with the non sequiturs about "responsibility for actions" and "coddling" the user. They are *not* mutually exclusive from good design and user experience.
I'd be fine with them leaving all that warning and legal talk in there and just changing the button text... so that I don't have read the warning EVERY time to figure out what Yes is for....having read the warnings once and made aware, every subsequent logout should be as quick and painless as possible: "Logout" or "Return to Banking.." 0r something along those lines.
Just so that those reading understand that users of web pages don't actually read the contents very carefully. See
Comments on this entry are closed
Previous: Quantity label | Main | Next: Student loan re-payment letter
It clearly says: "By clicking yes, you will be signed out..."
Besides the fact that you (seemingly) just pressed the Log Off button, and it is asking you to continue (at which point Yes seems to be the logical response).
Am I missing something, or is this not really broken?
Posted by: ed at April 7, 2007 12:39 AM