Dan Gorgone

Tweet from Baseball Boss

I’ve been playing an online baseball sim at BaseballBoss.com which involves collecting and trading virtual baseball cards. (If you’re a baseball fan looking for something different than the usual fantasy leagues, I recommend giving it a look.) I made sure to follow their Twitter profile so I could be notified about the latest cards added to the game. This morning, I saw a message from them on Tweetdeck notifying users of some downtime.

Most sites try to have 100% uptime, of course, but sometimes taking the site down is unavoidable. In times like these, preparation and communication is key. Are you showing weakness if you tell people your site will be down? Absolutely not, especially if you offer a little transparency in the process. As you’ll see, the site gives a reason for the downtime with an expectation as to when it will be back up. If you visit the site, you’ll also see a custom message explaining the outage as well as offering more information and links. This kind of proactive preparation for site downtime (as well as 404 errors) keeps users around, and shows them you’re always thinking about them. So, while website downtime may be akin to a rain delay at the ballpark, Baseball Boss at least knows enough to hand the fans an umbrella.

Fast & Furious

Anyone else see a problem when marketing can’t get on the same page with contractual agreements to list above-the-title credits in a certain order? Check out the Fast & Furious movie site and you’ll see what I mean.

Fax machine

I’ll make a hasty generalization to begin this post: everyone has a problem with at least one piece of technology in their workplace. You simply cannot be an expert on everything. Maybe you’re a PC user in a Mac workplace. Perhaps the idea of scanning an image makes you sweat. Filters are strange-looking, so the office coffee pot will never be filled by you. Besides, this is why we have an office admin/assistant, right?

My white whale is the fax machine. No matter where I go, what office I work in, what brand machine it is, I cannot figure out how to send a fax. Did I miss a class? A workshop along the way? No, here’s what happens:

Every office has its different rules and procedures for sending faxes. Some places require you dial 9, some do not. Others require a special accounting code, others do not. Is my number long distance from here? Better dial 1, or maybe you shouldn’t.

Do you see how many variables there are? And if you get any one of them wrong, you fail.

So, facing all these obstacles and doubts, I have made it my business to NOT send faxes when I can avoid it. And when I am forced to, I need help. I really do sound like Old Man Dan here - “In my day, we wrote letters and put stamps on ‘em” - but even the people who know the system don’t always get it right. How easy is it to forget that the source papers need to go in face DOWN as opposed to face UP? Not all printers and fax machines operate the same, and the complexities get more complex when these 3-in-1 and 4-in-1 machines have to be able to handle multiple tasks with a limited number of inputs.

But throw all that out the window: how difficult is the fax process really? You have papers to send and a phone number to enter. Where have we gone wrong? Why is the process so daunting (to me)?

Think about it this way: if the machine you were using simply asked you to enter a normal phone number - don’t worry about the 9 or the 1 - that would help, wouldn’t it? If you can set an area code in a fax machine, surely it can see if the first 3 digits in the number you enter match it. If they do, no 1; if not, add a 1. And when someone in IT or Office Management could tell the machine to add the 9 for you, you wouldn’t have to think about whether or not the machine requires it.

The designers and programmers need to take the guesswork out of really easy tasks like this. Consider this: if faxing had to be done by using a form on a website, it would have been perfected YEARS ago. Usability experts would have taken the guesswork out of the equation and required the setup be done to account for long distance, dial 9, accounting code authorization, and anything else. Sure, there were limited inputs on fax machines initiailly, but these things have screens and lotsa buttons now. There’s no excuse for this - fix the fax!

Order Status Link at the top of the Threadless page

I’m a big fan of what the folks at Threadless are doing. The site is so sharp, featuring a slick and clean design while showcasing some of the most creative shirt designs on the web. It’s really a nice site, and I recently ordered shirts for the whole family.

Today, I wanted to check the status on my order, so I went to the website. I clicked on the “Order Status” link at the top of the page under the happy little shopping cart (yes, it’s “happy” again because I added another shirt to the cart - I do love the subtleness of the happy cart).

This link brought me to the Order Status search page, right here:

Order Status search form

That’s a little odd. Since I was logged in, I expected that if I was going to check my order status, the system would know what orders I had previously placed. But instead, I landed here.

So, I try a different strategy: I click my Account link at the top of the page, and the second tab on this page is “My Orders”:

My Order Status Page

That was easy to find, and the system knew just what to show me. Seems odd that the same link next to my Shopping Cart would take me to a different page.

This is a minor gripe, and certainly not an experience killer. When my first idea failed, my next one worked just as expected. I would try to program things and change that “Order Status” link to take me to the Client version if I’m logged in. However, this should serve as a lesson to designers that even if you somehow fail the user’s expectations, good designers build in redundancy to ensure they will still find their way.

It would seem Wells Fargo cannot figure out how to easily allow their users to make payments on their mortgage.

Check out the screenshot below:

Screenshot of Wells Fargo Mortgage screen, with confusing links

The first arrow points to “Bill Pay” and the second points to “Make a Payment.” Bill Pay. Make a Payment. These two links are the same, and go to the same place… right? Wrong.

The frustration begins right after you login. The Accounts home page includes the navbar with “Bill Pay”, but “Make a Payment” is nowhere to be found. When you click “Bill Pay”, you are immediately faced with a red error message:

Thank you for your interest in Bill Pay. To use Bill Pay, you must have a valid checking account…

Excuse me? I do have a “valid checking account” at another bank. That’s where the money is, buddy. I wonder, perhaps I need to enter this checking account info somewhere so the system realizes I have a valid checking account, but there’s no form for that either. Suddenly it dawns on me that they mean I need to have a valid Wells Fargo checking account. Why should I open an account with them if I already have one elsewhere?

Here’s the kicker, though: I know I submitted a payment last month online through this website. How did I do it? I click everywhere looking for a solution, and when I navigate to the Account Details page (shown in the screen shot), I notice the “Make a Payment” link in the middle of the page. This link takes me to the page I’m looking for, asking if I’d like to make a payment from a non-Wells Fargo bank. Here we go. Within 30 seconds, I have made my mortgage payment, thanks to the site remembering my info from last time.

Too bad it took me 10 minutes to find the page!

What a frustrating experience. The link to make these online payments is not on the home page when I log in, which is crazy. Instead, their own (useless to me) Bill Pay option mocks me from the main navigation. However, on the home page, next to my mortgage account info, is a heading named “Related Activities.” Is paying the mortgage not one of these activities?

This is a example of a site making two classic mistakes: not designing with the user in mind, and poor information scent. One of the main reasons to access your mortgage information online has to be to make an online payment. Why this link is not included on the Account home page is a mystery. As far as the “Bill Pay” vs. “Make a Payment” confusion goes, Wells Fargo must know these two options both sound the same and would seem to offer the same service. It would be smart to either combine the two pages into one, or rename the links to “Pay with Another Wells Fargo Account” and “Pay with an External Account”, or something as descriptive. At the very least, Wells Fargo must provide links between these two pages for those who make the mistake of going to the wrong one, like myself.

I don’t follow professional football as closely as others, but I have to say I was surprised when I saw one of my favorite Transformers villains, Megatron, was now playing in the NFL. I thought, Hmmm, here’s a guy who is clearly feeling the effects of the economic downturn. In addition to leading the obviously-well-intentioned Decepticons (who would have guessed by that name that they are bad guys?), he’s also doubling as a pro athlete.

All kidding aside, though, I was browsing the blogs on ESPN and saw the headline: Can Megatron play in Week 17? and my interest was piqued. I was not sure who Megatron was aside from the Transformers character. Was this somebody’s nickname? I clicked through to find out more.

When I got to the article, I felt lost. Looking around, I wasn’t even sure what sport this article was about. Nowhere on the blog post aside from a quick reference to the Detroit Lions does it give me a clue. The mention of “Week 17″ sounded like a NFL term, referring to the final week of the regular season.

Whatever. This is not why I’m here. I’m here for Megatron.

Scanning ahead - not reading, but scanning - I quickly looked for the name “Megatron” again to satisfy my curiosity. Football is not my favorite sport, so I just wanted to know why this name was being bandied about. Nothing. I looked through the entire body of the page TWICE looking for the name “Megatron” without success. I did my Ctrl-F, and the Find returned nothing but the title of the article.

Huh? Am I missing something? I clicked on a link hoping to find more information on what was in the title, but now I am confused.

So I bailed. Google search: “Megatron football.” Sure enough, Calvin Johnson, a wide receiver I’ve never heard of with the Detroit Lions is the “Megatron” in question. Mystery solved.

But solving the mystery did not have to be so difficult. And this is hardly a “writing for the web”/”for print” issue. People have to learn how to provide titles AND copy in their blogs that help communicate clear information. Keywords and terms used in the title (and links to the entry) should also appear in the post. Sorry, I don’t follow the NFL closely enough to know who Megatron is, let alone the Big Hurt, Junior, or Human Highlight Film. But I do know writing “Calvin ‘Megatron’ Johnson” would not have wasted my time.

Skittles just rolled out a new version of their website which has been buzzed about on all the social networks this week. Why? Because their website is the social networks they appear on. Their new site is actually a cleverly built Flash navigation box floating over their presence pages on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, even Wikipedia.

For Skittles, this is an ingenious way to let the community provide content for you. Let them create the buzz, and anyone visiting the Skittles website will see it firsthand. However, opening up the pages to the public allows for them to control the message, and the chance for some bad apples to slip in. More than one commenter on the hundreds of blogs that have already covered the new site has voiced their concern about letting their kids on the Skittles site, and that would seem like a lost opportunity knowing how much kids love their candy.

But are other candy websites any better?

A quick look at the Snickers website reveals just what an experienced web user might expect: an over-designed Flash nightmare, unusable and confusing. Check out the Starburst site and it’s not much different.

So what’s the point of a candy website if the candy speaks for itself? Advertising. Not content.

Years ago, I used to occasionally visit the Life Savers website at CandyStand.com. Back then, I thought this was a pretty cool site, filled with simple games, fun little time wasters that took little effort but provided some cute harmless fun. And what was the point? In every game, there was some kind of Life Savers or related product advertised. If it was a Home Run Derby game, the scoreboard had a Life Savers billboard on it. If it was a Golf Driving Range game, there were ad signs on the grass. Did this site get me to buy more Life Savers? No, but I visited the site more often because the games were fun.

So, what’s the point? Like the candy they advertise, these websites are so light, fluffy, and of little importance that they are essentially pointless. Skittles all but validates this point by throwing up their arms and leaving the content in the hands of the people. In doing so, they have created a buzz amongst the people, not really for their website, but for their brand. You hardly know they sell candy at all.

I was recently asked if there was a topic I could help my colleagues learn more about, and I decided that Twitter would be the one that made most sense. For a while, I ignored the service, believing like many that the idea of tweeting in 140 characters or less about what I was doing was something was useless, perhaps dreamed up by people with nothing better to do but give each other arbitrary limitations (140? Why not 100 characters? 50? Alphanumeric characters only? No punctuation allowed!).

But then something truly phenomenal happened. Twitter became an exercise in effective communication, a dynamic news source no media outlet could beat, built upon a groundswell of socially- and interest-linked people from across the world. Everyday people, celebrities, musicians, washing machines, fictional characters - everyone started Twittering and now the service is a force of human nature.

In the past month, I have used Twitter everyday to find people with similar interests, at similar jobs, many of whom I would have never found without the tweets, Tweetdeck, retweeting, or the associated conventions of linking content for the masses.

So, it’s worth talking about. It’s worth educating people about.

But, my Twittery friends, what would you include in the course materials of Twitter 101? Here’s my initial high-level idea of topics:

• A brief history of Twitter, what it is, and how it started
• Twitter.com, profile pages, its features, and personal options
• Etiquette: @, #, RT, and how to Tweet without acting like a Twerp
• Apps: Tweetdeck and all the other sweet tools you can use
• Mobile: How to link your device to the Twitterverse
• Web: Linking Twitter data to Facebook and your blog
• Using Twitter: making it part of your personal communications and networking
• Join the Crowd: who’s already using Twitter? Celebrities, companies, fictional characters, and more

What have I missed?

Like the castaways on Lost, you don’t want to rely on supernatural forces or blind luck to find your way out of an unfamiliar situation. This goes for websites just as much as strange islands. So, one of the best things you can do as a web designer is give your users the tools and opportunities to help themselves when their web browsing plane crash lands in the middle of nowhere.

Page Not Found errors were, years ago, simply known by its numeric error code: 404. Old browsers and ignorant designers often left you with no idea as to why or how you arrived at an error, as it could have been a missing file, a bad URL, a server hiccup, or a balky network connection. All of those scenarios are still valid today, and explaining to the user why there was an error is still rare. However, these days, the quickness with which people browse the web and are willing to leave your site is frightening to any designer, marketer, or other member of a web team hoping to keep users on their site. If you can’t explain why your site failed, you must be willing to offer every bit of assistance to get your users back on track.

If you have not yet designed and implemented a Custom 404 Page for your site, get on it. Statistics may be able to tell you how many people have hit the 404 page before, but it cannot explain how many sales, customers, or followers you have truly lost. Smashing Magazine has assembled another great list of Page Not Found Pages to provide some inspiration. They come in artistic, comedic, and eccentric flavors, but the common thread is that they exist to distract the user from the problem while presenting alternatives. In addition, they must at the least include links to helpful spots, like the home page or the site map to help users get their bearings. For advanced users, you may even be able to use the bad URL in a query to locate the most logical correct destination, or include that as part of an error message, pointing out why it didn’t work.

Errors can happen at any time, so don’t hesitate to make your site a little more user friendly when accidents happen. If I can do it, so can you.

Taco Bell banner for Fourthmeal

While perhaps not as cool as Elevenses or Second Breakfast, the concept of Fourthmeal is nonetheless intriguing… if you’re a college student, an insomniac, or a Hobbit. Hey, if Taco Bell wants to corner the market on sleepyheads who crave tacos and burritos, it’s all good. But at least let these poor people know what time to show up!

Check out the ad banner I found at the local Taco Bell, located - surprise! - next to a college campus. Tell me: what is this banner communicating, besides your sudden requirement for a meal between dinner and breakfast?

Is it telling you that this location will be open until the times listed, or is it telling you they will open at those times? Or, perhaps, is it saying: “Fourthmeal is at 4am on Thursdays! Be here before the quesadillas get cold!”

What I am saying is that there should be no confusion. At the very least, you could either place a TIL before the times listed, or an OPEN. That would take care of things, right?

So, in an attempt to help those sleepwalkers with a chalupa addition, I looked to see if I could find the store times online. Taco Bell’s Fourthmeal site is no help, providing only a menu of food options I assume you can enjoy along with Merry and Pippin. It does note, however, that “Hours and Items May Vary By Location.” Fair enough. I guess that’s why they have this sign up in the window, right?

Let’s go to the source; let’s go straight to TacoBell.com. I find the Store Locator and this particular location. Guess what? No store hours are listed, for ANY location. Groan.

How do you say EPIC FAIL en Español? Perhaps the Elves have a word for it.