January 14, 2004
Bad billing
from Dreamhost
I'm extremely fond of my ISP, which is composed of friendly helpful and smart folks who perpetuate some of the worst design crimes I've ever seen on a regular basis in their homegrown interfaces. One of these days I'll get ambitious enough to outline the monsters. The one in this post is a misdemeanor, but I thought I'd capture it since it's simple.
Small issue #1: the credit card icons are not functional.
From a technical point of view, it's not necessary to have a user enter the card type; it's implicit in the number of the card. However some businesses ask for it; some do not. Users are asked to do so often enough that they will expect to enter the type of card.
Also, in Dreamhost interfaces, almost everything is functional, so the cards seem like they are the tool for selecting card type. At first I tried to click them, then when I realized they didn't click, I looked for a place to select what kind of card I had to enter. Which didn't exist. A few seconds wasted annoyingly.
Since dreamhost is merely showing what cards they support, a bit of explanatory text-- we accept X,Y, Z-- would go a long way.
Small issue #2: Unlabeled boxes
I entered my name above. then when a started to enter my billing info, I entered the street address in the first line, the city and state in the next. Then I got confused--- what was the third line for? It took me a second to realize they wanted my name in the first line. Why not label each line, to avoid confusion?
Affordances are not enough.
One good thing; they do address the problem I noted in the ryze guestbook writeup with some warning text-- just click this once. Considering that folks would not care to be billed twice, it's good advice.
I still love you Dreamhost, you provide good functionality, you are helpful and stable. Someday I hope you hire an interface designer.