Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Marketing + Technology

It's frustrating to see that in 2007 people just don't quite get it when it comes to technology and how to make it user friendly. J.D Power sent out a postcard to people living in apartments. It included a URL and a pin number to enter. The two things that are frustrating about it are the URL and the PIN.

This really shouldn't be that complex of a thing. The URL should be something easy to type. But instead of giving users something simple for a url, such as "ApartmentSurveyOnline.com", they tell people to type "http://www.apartmentsurveyonline.com/main.php". There is no need for this. The first example will work. It's a lot less to type and leaves a lot less room for error.

The same with the PIN that was sent. Why force users to type "0037878G". Why doesn't "37878g" work? There is nothing to tell the user that it's case sensitive let alone the need for the leading zeroes. The reason I figured it out is that I saw it was php file and assumed it would be case sensitive. How many users tried it once and when it didn't work moved on to something else?

It may seem trite. However when you're trying to encourage people to donate their time to your for-profit venture, making it as easy as possible is important.

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