Do you have “brick walls” blocking the positive user experience of your customers when they’re on your website?

Here’s an example I’d suggest you avoid.

MySpace has a feature where you can specify your high school — not a bad way of tracking down old friends. However, my old school isn’t in the database, so I contacted MySpace.

The first reply — obviously automated — answered nothing about the detailed information I’d provided about the school not being listed.

A week later, a second email turns up — telling me to try what I’ve ALREADY done to find out my school isn’t in the database!

MySpace then suggest if the problem still exists, to contact them.

I’ve ALREADY done that — several weeks ago! Did a real live human being actually cast eyes on my message? I doubt it.

From the customer’s point of view, this response is both irrelevant (covering areas I’ve already considered) and in part offensive: they don’t care enough to read my detailed submission to know that I’ve already advanced past their suggestions.

And, if I do submit this again — what’s to say that I won’t just go through the same run-around frustrating waste of time? There’s no assurances in the message received about that concern.

Have you looked for virtual brick walls? What can you do to assure your customers of a responsive, relevant reply?

Just for fun (!) today I signed out of Amazon’s website (part of an inadvertant cookie cleanout) — so I was faced of course with signing in again to add a couple of books to my Wish List.

When you visit the Amazon home page, you’re even greeted with:

Hello. Sign in to get personalized recommendations. New customer? Start here.

Trouble is, there’s no obvious link to Sign In!

You’d think the words “Sign in” in the message above would be linked. Or somewhere obvious would be a prompt to sign in.

Alas, no such luck.

Now, I know I only have 13 years of online experience (been online as long as Amazon, since 1995!)… but you’d think the Sign In feature would be more obvious, and not hidden in other links. Here’s how it does work…

• You can sign in by clicking the words “personalized recommedations” — which is not obvious.
• You can NOT sign in by clicking on “Your Account” up in the top navigation area — which to me would be the most intuitive place to do so.
• You can sign in if you click on the button “Your Amazon.com” and then click on a really obvious, yellow Sign In button.

So why isn’t this yellow button an obvious inclusion on the home page (when the system recognises the visitor isn’t already signed in)? It makes sense to me from a usability point of view!

I see Microsoft have launched Expression Web, a web building tool stepped up from Frontpage (ugghh!) program. Here’s 2 reasons why I’ll never use it:

1. No support for the PHP coding language: Australian Personal Computer magazine report “completely ignores PHP”
2. And this from APC: “There are built-in Accessibility and Browser Compatibility checking tools, though Mozilla, Opera and Firefox are absent from the list of browsers that Express Web checks your code against.”

Enough said. What a ridiculous approach. Firefox is a growing force in the browser wars, and it’d be silly (as many websites do, as they fall apart in Firefox) to ignore this market segment.

Next.

Why is it that Microsoft think they know what is good for ALL of their customers?

Take IE7. I can’t stand IE personally, but it’s on the machine that my mum and dad use. I only use IE when the occasional site falls apart dramatically in the Firefox browser (proving the site developer hasn’t even tested for Firefox, given the way the site breaks apart outside of IE). And then, if I can, I use the IE Tab extension/add-on in Firefox, rather than loading up IE7 on its own.

They were only introduced to computers in July 2006 when we gave them broadband and one of our old computers. The concept of computers is quite scary to them, given they’re both virtually in retirement. I recall demonstrating a webpage, talking about links — but forgetting to explain in detail — and dad wondered what a link was, or even how it was displayed, or what you did with it… all the basic things I’ve long forgotten to think about after 12 years of online experience!

So when IE7 came along, with Microsoft’s “we know what’s good for you” approach, the interface for web browsing was different — and there is no way to adjust it.

For instance, the menu bar no longer appears at the top of the screen. Usability thus drops — EVERY other program with a menu bar has it at the top of the window, so why does IE7 depart from standards? The address bar is now at the top and is not able to be moved.

And then there’s a line of cryptic icons for Favorites, tools etc — again, stuck in place at the bottom of the toolbars as a “command bar”. Sure, you can add text labels to some of the icons, but you cannot move this command bar anywhere. So, the links toolbar cannot be the bottom toolbar, just above the content window… Microsoft have decided that the very top address bar and the bottom Command bar are locked in place and cannot be changed.

Why not let users CHOOSE where those usability elements are placed, according to their preferences or their existing habits? It’s hard enough, especially for inexperienced users, that the interface is no longer quite the same (let alone a whole other post about changing to Tabbed browsing).

Why don’t Microsoft let their customers think for themselves? Instead of the old advertising tagline “where do you want to go today?” — perhaps Microsoft should have put “we’ll tell you where you’re going today, you don’t get a choice.”