This is a “podcast” or audio recording where I’m trying out doing an audio recording of my thoughts.

What I notice is that when I was staring at the computer it was very hard to talk, as I kept getting distracted by the machine.

Some things I talk about:

• idea for an article on Webmaster tools and Google analytics
• working on editor reviews and my plan to create a video of my favorite web editors
• thoughts about a new(-ish) category of web editor—the WYSIWYG editor so people don’t need to know HTML at all
  • should I create a separate evaluation of these editors?
  • do customers make a distinction between WYSIWYG editors and “development” editors?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

So, Thursday or Friday I got a note from my mail carrier saying that I had a box waiting for me from Amazon.com. Since I have received all of my Amazon orders I was not really sure what it could be. Since it was addressed (on the note) to J. Kyrnin, I was thinking it might actually be a present for Jaryth because his birthday is coming up.

So I head to the post office this morning, and after waiting in the long line (of course!) I get my package and open it up and inside is a girl’s size small hockey shorts with “pelvic protector”. Um buh? I checked the box again and yes, it was addressed to me. But on the inside the shipping label was addressed to someone in New York State, both billing and shipping addresses.

What I then learned is that Amazon makes it challenging to deal with problems that occur outside of their standard problems. If I wanted to return it, I was told that “returns are easy.” But then I wasn’t sure if the hockey player in New York would get the refund or not. I don’t want the money, it isn’t mine. I then thought I’d return it as a gift, and that wouldn’t work as a) Amazon does gift returns as a gift card to the recipient (ie. me) not the sender and b) this item was apparently not eligible for returns or exchanges.

So then I moved on to their customer care form. First I have to indicate that the problem I’m having is not part of their online help. Then I have to choose from a drop-down that, unsurprisingly, has no option for “I received something I didn’t order and is not a gift.” I chose “other non-order related.” But it is kinda order related, but anyhow… So then I get another drop down, and by this time I’m getting ready to give up, except that I don’t want to throw away a perfectly good, brand new item, as that seems like a waste. So I slog on. I fill in the next drop down in the “other” category again, because again they don’t have one that is related to my issue. I then give details and then “more details” and hit the “contact me by email” option. I am now supposed to wait no more than 12 hours for a response. I hope that the hockey player doesn’t start her hockey games for a while.

This seems like something that many online form creators should be aware of – namely the goals of the customers using the form. My perception of this customer service form was that they were trying to avoid having to talk to me. There was a lot of focus on getting me to use online help, and I’m sure that’s useful for the majority of requests. But for those that don’t fit into that mold, the form can get annoying very fast.

One of the features that this form had that ended up being annoying was that it changed dynamically when I chose various options. Designers and developers love these types of forms because they are interactive, fun to build, and help the customer self-select exactly what they need. But I found it really annoying as there was never any indication that the end was in sight. I would select one option, and another would appear – poof. I would choose from that list, and the form would change again. As I said above I was getting really tired of filling out the form (and you should be aware that this form was the last in a series of things I tried before using it. I tried returning, gift returning, and then just looking for a number I could call before finding that link to customer service.

If I had been even slightly busier or on any type of time restraint I would have just given up and dumped the thing in the trash never to worry about it again.

I suppose the other reason it was tedious is because all of the choices I had for returns, gift returns, and even customer service were assuming that I had made some type of mistake.

For example, when asked why I wanted to return it, I was given options like:

• no longer want
• not what I ordered
• doesn’t match picture
• etc.

The only options that assigned any type of blame to someone other than me were related to the shipping, like arrived broken or arrived after due date. Both of which could be considered issues with the shipper, not Amazon. And in this scenario, Amazon was clearly the guilty party, either their programming messed up or the people packing the shipment messed up.

Ultimately, this form experience won’t turn me off of Amazon—I have had many many many positive experiences with them. But for a smaller, less well-known company this type of experience with a web form could turn a customer off a company forever.

Although, I admit, if I had received these shorts from any other company other than Amazon, I wouldn’t have made any effort to get them back to the hockey player in New York. I would have just dumped them (maybe Freecyle or eBay) and never thought about it again.

I got an email today asking if there were an easier way to take my online class because when she clicked on a link that she thought was the next step, she was taken somewhere else.

I really don’t know what to tell these people.

It isn’t that hard, people!

Of course, it IS that hard if you need someone holding your hand the entire way. Step 1, do this, step 2, do that, step 3 go here, step 4 go there, poof, you’re a web designer!

I like teaching beginners. I really do. But I don’t like teaching lazy people who can’t be bothered to read or follow instructions.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I wrote to her telling her to go to the syllabus for the week and follow the links from there, going back to that page when she’d finished an article.

Her reply:

“That is what I did but could not get back. I saw a lot of links to other
websites. I was reading lesson 1 and it said to type in HTML and I do
not know how to do that yet so I think I registered for the wrong class.
I thought I was registering for the html class but I think it is the
wrong one. “

OH MY GOD! You couldn’t get back? See that fancy button in the upper left of your browser window? That’s the (wait for it) BACK button. Try clicking that. I’ll wait… Or, if that doesn’t work, try going back to the email where you first got the link. Oh, you deleted that already? How the FUCK can I help you then?

I just wrote her again with step-by-fucking-step instructions for how to find the lessons, how to stay on them, how to avoid clicking anything other than what’s on the syllabus. Unfortunately, I can’t fucking control her mouse to stop her from clicking on anything shiny that she sees while she’s not reading the lesson.

Holy fuck woman.

Okay, after calming down a bit I took a look at the articles. I think she’s getting hung up in one of the Notepad articles that says “write your HTML here” and since she hasn’t learned HTML, she’s thinking “but I don’t know HTML” and getting frustrated. I honestly don’t know, as of course, she can’t even make that much clear in her communication to me. So I added a note in that article saying “if you are in the HTML class, don’t worry about writing HTML here, just type a few words and move to the next step.” Or something like that.

Honestly, I think that what is rocket science is writing a course that is easy enough for the people who need their hands held but not so easy that the more adventurous learners aren’t bored to tears and walk away.

So, my design is scheduled to be presented tomorrow, and I’ve already got a new design in mind. Holy, cow, Jenn! Why not stick with a design for, oh, say a week to try it out? Or at least until you’ve finished your presentation.

But the “shiny!”

Step away from the shiny, Jenn. You’re feverish, just walk away from Dreamweaver for right now.

So, you said that it was very square, so I rounded some of the corners, just for you. Of course, if you were viewing this in IE, you’d still see the square corners because I didn’t do it with images but with CSS (faster to download). Luckily, I know you’re not viewing it in IE. And this method works for Firefox 1+, Safari 3+, Opera 10.5+, Chrome 1+, and browsers that use Gecko or Webkit. I don’t remember what browser you use, however. Okay, time to stop stalling on my newsletter.