This is possibly the most flawed (and most dangerous) piece of 'design' I have come across. It has been bugging me for a while and so I felt compelled to share it so others could pour forth scorn upon it as I do every time I use the site.

Seriously, if I press logout I want to log out. If I had pressed 'I think I want to log out' then this behaviour might be acceptable. But when you're talking finances you have to err on the side of caution.

Let's look at this from another angle. Let's suppose I pressed logout and I was logged out immediately. What is the worst thing that could happen? If I'm who I say I am and I accidentally pressed the button I'll have to log in again to continue what I was doing. Oh noes! If I'm not who I say I am then there's another crime prevented. The chances of accidentally hitting the button, however, are slim.

Let's now look at how it currently works. I press logout and it asks me 'Are you sure? Are you sure you're sure?'. The worst case is a lot worse now because let us suppose that Barclaycard's servers are, for a change, running horribly slow like I've been experiencing today. Let's even give them a little slack and blame the ISP for a slow connection. I press logout and it crawls off into the webs to log me out. Or so I think. It's taking forever to load and not being the most patient of souls I think 'Oh well, it's hit the server, the page has partially loaded, I'm good to go'.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist (or a web developer - a good alternative to the analogy) to know that you don't have to wait until the last image to load to ensure an action has been completed after clicking a link.

And so I close the window, eager to catch the next episode of Dr. Horrible or I dash off to pick up the delivery of Polonium I missed from the post office feeling safe that no one will have access to my funds. What I didn't realise was that Barclaycard's User Experience staff need firing because I'm still logged in and the next ne'er-do-well that sits at the computer could be paying off my credit card from his bank account. FROM HIS BANK ACCOUNT, PEOPLE!

I ask you, when will the madness stop?

But seriously, a pretty terrible design flaw, right?

Lined paper? Really?

Let's analyse this. Why is it lined? To help us write straight? Isn't that something we learned how to do in school? Let's look at it from another perspective. If all pads were blank, how many people would draw lines on, even if there was perhaps a common tool that made it really easy? Think about it. Would you do it or would you feel a little bit childish that you needed your lines drawn on for you, like you might have done for you by your parents when you were younger and writing on 'grown-up letter writing paper'... you know, the stuff that doesn't have any lines?

So why is it that the vast majority of us buy - and use - lined paper despite the fact we are adults? Can't we write straight? Or are we just creatures of habit, unwilling to veer from the path of what we know?

It's actually quite hard to find blank pads in such a variety of styles, types and bindings as you can find lined paper. Maybe this is part of the problem too, but without the demand there's no point in producing it.

This train of thought comes from a page from my A4 lined pad at work. I have it turned on its side and so the lines are completely redundant. I also doodle except the lines ruin my art. Unfortunately work doesn't provide blank pads, but if it did I would switch to using them in a flash!

Your packaging for your shower gel is very clever. I've often thought so. You know the one - the little nozzle that lets you hang it upside down without it dripping unless you squeeze it. You must have a patent on it because no one else uses that design (although I think I've seen it on Heinz ketchup bottles - are you and Heinz owned by the same parent company or something?)

Anyway it's very clever for more than one reason. The first is as I have already stated - the non-drip upside down nature of it. The second is that you cannot squeeze just a little bit of the product out - it all comes in a big rush. This probably helps your sales quite effectively.

It's not without it's faults however. I'll start by using the previous reason for which it is clever, as by having the product gushing out as the minimum flow rate the actual end consumers of the product will more often than not get more than they need. The second reason it's not so clever is because the bottle is essentially closed until there is enough pressure to open it. This means that you can't really smell it without using it.

Combine these two faults and I'm afraid you end up with me in the supermarket with a nostril full of your shower gel and a competitor's product in my basket.

Your sincerely,

Mark

Today's new experience is the exception to the rule as I had a taxi back into me while I was crouching down using the air pump at the garage. I couldn't recommend it to anyone.

It could make quite a big difference...

Then he made a comment about people with laptops on trains to the female passenger sitting next to him who in retrospect I lost all respect for due to her laughing reaction. He said something to the effect that no one can possibly do any work on a train and all they do is check emails. Well hold on, I think a lot of people would consider checking and replying to emails work. Maybe he doesn't know that mobile internet isn't really all that commonplace just yet... If he'd heard of it at all and wasn't just spouting rubbish to try and 'impress the ladies'.

Then he went on to expand upon his dislike to gadgets in general stating that they were 'everywhere these days'. NO WAY! I hadn't noticed! This is a major revelation for me. Welcome to 2008. Actually, welcome to 2002. Seriously, people have been fiddling with their phones, MP3 players etc for years... decades if you think about walkmans etc. This guy is really a fool.

Just to cap it off he exclaims 'You can even get a portable Playstation now!'. He didn't, however, see the point of them or the people that play them at 7am. 'Why would you want to play an entertainment game at that time in the morning?' (my emphasis). Wow. Yes it's amazing that you can get a portable games system now isn't it? Except you've been able to get portable game systems since 1989 when Nintendo released their first Game Boy.

I'm not even going to comment on why you might want to play games while commuting to work.

It made me really angry and I spent the whole journey thinking up smart replies to say back to him which were of course too late as the time had passed. I don't know why I can't come up with these things more quickly, it's the most frustrating thing in the world as he really needed taking down a notch or two.

Needless to say I got plenty of work done despite my mind being half occupied with being mad and earned my fare in at least twice over while he sat there staring into space looking like a gormless pillock. This was satisfying but not as satisfying as making him look foolish by countering everything he said would have been.

I wonder if you can take classes for that.

Wow.]]> http://www.theyakshack.co.uk/index.php?page=comments&type=news&id= http://www.theyakshack.co.uk/index.php?page=comments&type=news&id=222 Tue, 08 Apr 2008 03:00:21 GMT This is great. Someone put this guy on tour with Zeldman!

Let me explain.

This morning I was waiting for the train to go to work when the announcement came across the tannoy: 'The next train at platform 2 will be the severely delayed whenever service to wherever. Once again, I am extremely sorry for this delay and any inconvenience it may have caused'. Wait a second. YOU're sorry? You - the computer? No you're not, you're just saying that because you're programmed to. You are actually feeling zero amount of remorse or regret and so what you just said is a LIE in an attempt to appease angry customers.

Of course saying your sorry does work as an appeasement of sorts, but it's not the automated voice system that is sorry. A better option would probably be to say '...Rail network are extremely sorry would like to apologise for any inconvenience'. It's not a big change but it would certainly sound a little more sincere.

It wasn't even my train that was delayed, but I still felt like the announcement program was mocking me and everyone around me with its insincerity!

I don't know but I think you might just have to have the exact right amount of wine inside you to appreciate this fully, so give it a go now or wait until you get back in from a night out... your call!

Until not long ago, when you clicked log out it didn't log you out.

Wait a second, it's not as crazy as it sounds. It's still crazy though, for when you pressed the button you were taken to a confirmation page asking if you were SURE you wanted to log out. Am I sure? Well just a cotton picking minute, I just clicked the log out button didn't I? Maybe you thought I meant I wanted some sponge cake?

This behaviour is bad because people are used to either being returned to the site's home page or to a page saying 'You are now logged out'. It's safe to say that once the page has loaded you are logged out. So imagine the user that clicks log out and then closes the window as soon as the page starts to render. If that action didn't log them out they just closed the window despite the fact they are still logged in! You wouldn't want to do that by accident on a public computer...

Maybe there is a little bit of value in making sure the user actually wanted to log out in some situations (although this could be done with javascript) but the worst that could happen is that they have to log in again. I rather think that security is the more important issue here.

Like I said though, my to my relief the recent site upgrade has fixed this little problem. However now if I want to pay last month's statement total I no longer have the option of chosing the amount from a list, I have to type it in a text field. That's not really very useful now is it? Come on guys, sort it out!