please enter your phone number in the most excruciating way
May 1, 2016 6:24 AM Subscribe
These are indeed hilariously terrible, but am I missing something or are there only four examples? I see four examples, two unrelated tumblr postings, and a link that makes me download the app if I want to keep reading. Is that just how tumblr works now, or is that all there is?
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 6:30 AM on May 1, 2016
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 6:30 AM on May 1, 2016
Only marginally less awful is the field that asks you to enter your 16-digit credit card number, and allows spaces but also enforces a 16-character limit, forcing you to go back and delete the three spaces you typed so that the number will fit.
posted by pipeski at 6:32 AM on May 1, 2016 [30 favorites]
posted by pipeski at 6:32 AM on May 1, 2016 [30 favorites]
These are indeed hilariously terrible, but am I missing something or are there only four examples?
Is that insufficiently weird for you?
Okay, that last one would be kinda fun. Once. If I didn't have anything else to do at that moment.
The third one is clearly a torture device and not an actual attempt to let someone enter a phone number.
The second one, depending on how sensitive that slider is, is somewhere on the "bright idea" and "go fuck yourself" spectrum.
And the first one, I can totally, one hundred percent see happening because the web designer was told to minimize typing and decided to be a bastard about it.
posted by Etrigan at 6:44 AM on May 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
Is that insufficiently weird for you?
Okay, that last one would be kinda fun. Once. If I didn't have anything else to do at that moment.
The third one is clearly a torture device and not an actual attempt to let someone enter a phone number.
The second one, depending on how sensitive that slider is, is somewhere on the "bright idea" and "go fuck yourself" spectrum.
And the first one, I can totally, one hundred percent see happening because the web designer was told to minimize typing and decided to be a bastard about it.
posted by Etrigan at 6:44 AM on May 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
Missing: the one where they have a separate input field for each part, realized this was awkward, then added JavaScript to move the caret to the "appropriate" place after each keypress, making it impossible to get rid of a typo without reloading the page.
posted by you at 6:44 AM on May 1, 2016 [26 favorites]
posted by you at 6:44 AM on May 1, 2016 [26 favorites]
Also missing, the drop down with all recognized phone number lengths to choose from, but not ranked numerically and definitely not with your country/region at the top.
posted by klausman at 6:47 AM on May 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by klausman at 6:47 AM on May 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
I typed my phone number out in words by email once and felt terrible for weeks afterwards.
Plus four four seven nine seven… I should make a number from words / words from number service for OSX to make amends. Or an app with a share sheet to make money.
posted by davemee at 7:01 AM on May 1, 2016
Plus four four seven nine seven… I should make a number from words / words from number service for OSX to make amends. Or an app with a share sheet to make money.
posted by davemee at 7:01 AM on May 1, 2016
oooh how about one where the field is one character too short and there's javascript validation that won't let you submit the form until you have entered the proper number of digits?
posted by indubitable at 7:05 AM on May 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by indubitable at 7:05 AM on May 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
These are from this Twitter thread. The thread has gone pretty long but some selected ones are here and here. I would prefer if the link in the FPP pointed to the primary source, or to something that credited the primary source.
posted by a car full of lions at 7:13 AM on May 1, 2016 [13 favorites]
posted by a car full of lions at 7:13 AM on May 1, 2016 [13 favorites]
The first one had been making the rounds on reddit's design and programming subreddits, and then the rest were created as jokes mocking the first one. Here's the origin, I think, (sorry for reddit link).
posted by dis_integration at 7:15 AM on May 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by dis_integration at 7:15 AM on May 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
Thanks for the original sources! That tumblr post was all I had to work with - I remember some discussion about those UI systems elsewhere on Tumblr, but those didn't have any images.
posted by divabat at 7:17 AM on May 1, 2016
posted by divabat at 7:17 AM on May 1, 2016
I'm British.
I get to fill out address forms a lot.
They're usually designed by Americans.
A classic is the mandatory "State" field, with a two letter abbreviation. Clue: the UK does not have "states". Sometimes American coders are so clueless they make having a state mandatory. Or they think that you live in a country with smaller administrative districts so they ought to make those mandatory. A special place in hell is reserved for the ones who insist that if I live in Scotland I have to live in a Scottish county. (Clue: I live in Edinburgh. Edinburgh is surrounded by Midlothian, but isn't actually part of Midlothian, sort of like the way Washington DC isn't part of Maryland, only if it wasn't part of DC, either.)
Another classic is where they assume everyone has a zip code and this is five numerical digits long. Trust me, this doesn't work for British postal codes (alphanumeric, two groups, two letters then 1-2 digits followed by a group of one digit then two letters).
Best of all is the Big French Airline that doesn't comprehend that it is legitimately possible to have non-numerical, non-alphabetical characters in your street address, and codes the javascript on their flight booking system to reject your credit card if you enter the billing address correctly. But entering it incorrectly works because Visa address authentication is broken, so there's that.
Finally, phone numbers ... nope, the rest of the world does not always obey the classic American phone number formats of three digit area code/seven digit number.
posted by cstross at 7:18 AM on May 1, 2016 [57 favorites]
I get to fill out address forms a lot.
They're usually designed by Americans.
A classic is the mandatory "State" field, with a two letter abbreviation. Clue: the UK does not have "states". Sometimes American coders are so clueless they make having a state mandatory. Or they think that you live in a country with smaller administrative districts so they ought to make those mandatory. A special place in hell is reserved for the ones who insist that if I live in Scotland I have to live in a Scottish county. (Clue: I live in Edinburgh. Edinburgh is surrounded by Midlothian, but isn't actually part of Midlothian, sort of like the way Washington DC isn't part of Maryland, only if it wasn't part of DC, either.)
Another classic is where they assume everyone has a zip code and this is five numerical digits long. Trust me, this doesn't work for British postal codes (alphanumeric, two groups, two letters then 1-2 digits followed by a group of one digit then two letters).
Best of all is the Big French Airline that doesn't comprehend that it is legitimately possible to have non-numerical, non-alphabetical characters in your street address, and codes the javascript on their flight booking system to reject your credit card if you enter the billing address correctly. But entering it incorrectly works because Visa address authentication is broken, so there's that.
Finally, phone numbers ... nope, the rest of the world does not always obey the classic American phone number formats of three digit area code/seven digit number.
posted by cstross at 7:18 AM on May 1, 2016 [57 favorites]
Tumblr ganked this from Kottke, who provides a couple more examples and has the courtesy to link to sources.
Personally I love the rotary dial one both because the interface is a small flash of technical brilliance and because of the beautiful perversity of it.
posted by ardgedee at 7:30 AM on May 1, 2016 [8 favorites]
Personally I love the rotary dial one both because the interface is a small flash of technical brilliance and because of the beautiful perversity of it.
posted by ardgedee at 7:30 AM on May 1, 2016 [8 favorites]
Really needed one of those floaty 3D balloon-cloud diagrams (think of the old Plumb Design Visual Thesaurus that used to be all ooo! aah! hey my machine just froze … on early Java demos) with all 1010 options bobbing about.
On phone numbers, cstross, it's best to think of the US as not quite understanding E.123 yet.
A super-special hell is entering Canadian postal codes on mobile. They're of the format L1L 1L1, so you have to hit digit/alpha shift for every hosin' character.
posted by scruss at 7:39 AM on May 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
On phone numbers, cstross, it's best to think of the US as not quite understanding E.123 yet.
A super-special hell is entering Canadian postal codes on mobile. They're of the format L1L 1L1, so you have to hit digit/alpha shift for every hosin' character.
posted by scruss at 7:39 AM on May 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
I like the bigger/smaller one, though it would be hell to actually use. There must be a way to figure out the minimum/maximum number of clicks it would take to reach a designated phone number.
Phone numbers, especially with international numbers, can be a huge pain, but so can things like having your name field be character-limited to a strangely short length, or where it won't allow hyphenated names. Ditto for address lines -- not all address are as simple as "123 Main Street" and forms that won't allow anything else are infuriating.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:55 AM on May 1, 2016
Phone numbers, especially with international numbers, can be a huge pain, but so can things like having your name field be character-limited to a strangely short length, or where it won't allow hyphenated names. Ditto for address lines -- not all address are as simple as "123 Main Street" and forms that won't allow anything else are infuriating.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:55 AM on May 1, 2016
I worked in Spain for a year, so I know those feels, cstross. When I fill out online job application software, usually I am forced to put 555-555-5555 as my work number for that year, and then in the "Job Duties" field I write, "Actual number is +34 972 340 293"
posted by chainsofreedom at 8:03 AM on May 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by chainsofreedom at 8:03 AM on May 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
Oh god, the ridiculous requirements when a coder hasn't considered not everyone is just like them. Reminds me of the presumptions coders make about names [link] or time. [link] I think they were on the blue but I can't find them right now.
posted by Braeburn at 8:07 AM on May 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Braeburn at 8:07 AM on May 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
There must be a way to figure out the minimum/maximum number of clicks it would take to reach a designated phone number.
A binary search would be my first guess. Now I'm going to have to work it out but that might actually be pretty quick.
posted by indubitable at 8:07 AM on May 1, 2016
A binary search would be my first guess. Now I'm going to have to work it out but that might actually be pretty quick.
posted by indubitable at 8:07 AM on May 1, 2016
O(log2(n)) where in this case, n is what, 999 999 9999? So 34 clicks?
posted by RobotHero at 8:09 AM on May 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by RobotHero at 8:09 AM on May 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
Obviously the minimum is 0 clicks, but only one person has that number.
posted by RobotHero at 8:12 AM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by RobotHero at 8:12 AM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
you could also shave off a few clicks by accepting a narrow enough range, then you can just brute force their phone number if you actually need to use it.
yes.
yes, this is a good plan and how regular peoples' social expectations work.
posted by indubitable at 8:18 AM on May 1, 2016 [9 favorites]
yes.
yes, this is a good plan and how regular peoples' social expectations work.
posted by indubitable at 8:18 AM on May 1, 2016 [9 favorites]
Pretty much all software was this bad until the Internet came along, followed by search engines like Google, which would pretty much take whatever you typed in and tried to figure out what you meant.
This changed people's expectations of terribleness. We wouldn't put up with overly restrictive, poorly or lazily written interfaces anymore because we had seen better.
Yet, even to this day, there are holdouts of awfulness.
posted by eye of newt at 8:33 AM on May 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
This changed people's expectations of terribleness. We wouldn't put up with overly restrictive, poorly or lazily written interfaces anymore because we had seen better.
Yet, even to this day, there are holdouts of awfulness.
posted by eye of newt at 8:33 AM on May 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
They're usually designed by Americans.
A classic is the mandatory "State" field, with a two letter abbreviation
For Canadians, it helps that our provinces have two letter abbreviations. The international fail comes where they assume US five-digit zip codes appliy elsewhere, but we've got six-character alphanumeric postal codes here.
Relevant to the topic at hand: GUI Bloopers. A great read if this kind of stuff drives you around the bend.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:34 AM on May 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
A classic is the mandatory "State" field, with a two letter abbreviation
For Canadians, it helps that our provinces have two letter abbreviations. The international fail comes where they assume US five-digit zip codes appliy elsewhere, but we've got six-character alphanumeric postal codes here.
Relevant to the topic at hand: GUI Bloopers. A great read if this kind of stuff drives you around the bend.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:34 AM on May 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
A classic is the mandatory "State" field, with a two letter abbreviation. Clue: the UK does not have "states".
There's a simple fix I've seen lots of sites use: refuse to ship anywhere outside of USA/Canada.
posted by mantecol at 8:37 AM on May 1, 2016 [5 favorites]
There's a simple fix I've seen lots of sites use: refuse to ship anywhere outside of USA/Canada.
posted by mantecol at 8:37 AM on May 1, 2016 [5 favorites]
I very recently encountered an app (Edinburgh bus e-ticketing system, as it happens) that wanted me to pick my date of birth from a calendar. Not so silly on a mobile, right? But you were given a starting calendar some time in the late 1990s and the only way to navigate was by repeatedly selecting the adjacent month. I'd lived a lot of months by the late 1990s.
How that ever, ever got born as an idea, let alone get through to production, is beyond me.
posted by Devonian at 8:59 AM on May 1, 2016 [11 favorites]
How that ever, ever got born as an idea, let alone get through to production, is beyond me.
posted by Devonian at 8:59 AM on May 1, 2016 [11 favorites]
Sites that put in +44 before the phone number box. Okay, so are you going to now make me put in the leading zero, which would make the number invalid? Or insist I don't? CLICK SUBMIT TO FIND OUT!
posted by alasdair at 9:21 AM on May 1, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by alasdair at 9:21 AM on May 1, 2016 [7 favorites]
Best of all is the Big French Airline that doesn't comprehend that it is legitimately possible to have non-numerical, non-alphabetical characters in your street address
Okay, I give. Spaces? Degrees?
posted by dame at 9:38 AM on May 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
Okay, I give. Spaces? Degrees?
posted by dame at 9:38 AM on May 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
I once was an actual professional Forms Designer (there were lots of us; we had a national org. and everything). This sort of thing -- fields too long/short, variations not accounted for etc. -- was just the kind of thing we paid attention to. I did systems analysis of the form's usage both before and after design. I was working at Univ. of Ariz. Medical Health Center in Tucson, so we had lots of cross-border people to deal with -- you know, odd names etc. All these things had to be accounted for. The desktop publishing push did away with my profession and now we have these godawful "forms" that are difficult to use. I'm willing to bet that the coders and "designers" who come up with these things have never had to use them.
posted by MovableBookLady at 9:51 AM on May 1, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by MovableBookLady at 9:51 AM on May 1, 2016 [5 favorites]
Okay, I give. Spaces? Degrees?
Dashes.
In eg. Queens, your street number is something like 34-22.
posted by LogicalDash at 9:54 AM on May 1, 2016 [8 favorites]
Dashes.
In eg. Queens, your street number is something like 34-22.
posted by LogicalDash at 9:54 AM on May 1, 2016 [8 favorites]
Oh, man, LogicalDash (heh) as a hyphenate who has people constantly refusing my last name, I should have thought about that one.
posted by dame at 9:58 AM on May 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by dame at 9:58 AM on May 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
Clue: the UK does not have "states".
Well there's your problem.
posted by The Tensor at 10:02 AM on May 1, 2016 [6 favorites]
Well there's your problem.
posted by The Tensor at 10:02 AM on May 1, 2016 [6 favorites]
My first thought was apostrophes, but you'd hope a French company would think of that one.
posted by RobotHero at 10:06 AM on May 1, 2016
posted by RobotHero at 10:06 AM on May 1, 2016
Oh god, the ridiculous requirements when a coder hasn't considered not everyone is just like them.
Or...
Coder: Hey boss, you know not everyone's like us. Should I make this form work for other countries?
Boss: Nah. It will never get used outside the U.S., don't waste your time.
Later...
Boss: Hey Coder, we're getting complaints about your form from non-U.S. users. Why didn't you make it more universal? Are you an idiot?
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 10:14 AM on May 1, 2016 [19 favorites]
Or...
Coder: Hey boss, you know not everyone's like us. Should I make this form work for other countries?
Boss: Nah. It will never get used outside the U.S., don't waste your time.
Later...
Boss: Hey Coder, we're getting complaints about your form from non-U.S. users. Why didn't you make it more universal? Are you an idiot?
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 10:14 AM on May 1, 2016 [19 favorites]
Yet, even to this day, there are holdouts of awfulness.
Like the zipcode database provider that causes my perfectly legitimate and official zipcode to be rejected by websites and customer service reps. I'm sure the USPS would provide a valid list if asked, but these websites and companies use a lame incomplete one.
Also, the websites that do not allow the abbreviations [N. City], and [No. City].
posted by Kirth Gerson at 10:19 AM on May 1, 2016
Like the zipcode database provider that causes my perfectly legitimate and official zipcode to be rejected by websites and customer service reps. I'm sure the USPS would provide a valid list if asked, but these websites and companies use a lame incomplete one.
Also, the websites that do not allow the abbreviations [N. City], and [No. City].
posted by Kirth Gerson at 10:19 AM on May 1, 2016
Okay, I give. Spaces? Degrees?
Slashes.
The Official Post Office approved way of addressing a letter to apartment 7 at 201, Anystreet in Scotland is:
7/201 Anystreet
Or it might be 4F1, 201 Anystreet (4th floor, flat 1)
posted by cstross at 10:25 AM on May 1, 2016 [5 favorites]
Slashes.
The Official Post Office approved way of addressing a letter to apartment 7 at 201, Anystreet in Scotland is:
7/201 Anystreet
Or it might be 4F1, 201 Anystreet (4th floor, flat 1)
posted by cstross at 10:25 AM on May 1, 2016 [5 favorites]
An extra horrible place in hell is reserved for American coders who have a pop-up menu for "country" if your nation of residence is non-US.
A lot of their visitors come from the UK. But the lists are alphabetized. So you have to scroll through about 180 other countries before you get to Uganda, the United Arab Emirates, the UK, and (if you go too far) the USA.
But that's not the worst.
The pits of hell are reserved for those asshole coders who get too clever for their own good and deliberately list "Great Britain" instead of "UK", so you go whizzing past Greece and Hungary, only to find Uganda, the UAE, then the USA ... but no UK! And the worst of all are the knuckle-dragging idiots who separate out England and Scotland. (Clue: you're making extra work for the postal service because England and Scotland are one nation for international addressing purposes, and that nation is the United Kingdom (UK), at least until we have Independence Referendum 2.0.)
posted by cstross at 10:29 AM on May 1, 2016 [8 favorites]
A lot of their visitors come from the UK. But the lists are alphabetized. So you have to scroll through about 180 other countries before you get to Uganda, the United Arab Emirates, the UK, and (if you go too far) the USA.
But that's not the worst.
The pits of hell are reserved for those asshole coders who get too clever for their own good and deliberately list "Great Britain" instead of "UK", so you go whizzing past Greece and Hungary, only to find Uganda, the UAE, then the USA ... but no UK! And the worst of all are the knuckle-dragging idiots who separate out England and Scotland. (Clue: you're making extra work for the postal service because England and Scotland are one nation for international addressing purposes, and that nation is the United Kingdom (UK), at least until we have Independence Referendum 2.0.)
posted by cstross at 10:29 AM on May 1, 2016 [8 favorites]
Anyone who goes "I know, I'll write a phone number parser myself" might want to look at the amount of code in libphonenumber...
posted by effbot at 10:33 AM on May 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by effbot at 10:33 AM on May 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
"Best of all is the Big French Airline that doesn't comprehend that it is legitimately possible to have non-numerical, non-alphabetical characters in your street address"
A lot of forms also don't take 1/2 (like, "123 1/2 Sesame Street") in an address. I also have a relative who lives at #E (like "123 Sesame Street #E") and look I DON'T LIKE IT EITHER, YOU STUPID FORM, BUT THAT'S THE MAILING ADDRESS. Sometimes they don't want you to use the # sign; sometimes they reject the idea that someone can live at "number E." It's in the USPS database so I don't know why it gets rejected so often.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:35 AM on May 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
A lot of forms also don't take 1/2 (like, "123 1/2 Sesame Street") in an address. I also have a relative who lives at #E (like "123 Sesame Street #E") and look I DON'T LIKE IT EITHER, YOU STUPID FORM, BUT THAT'S THE MAILING ADDRESS. Sometimes they don't want you to use the # sign; sometimes they reject the idea that someone can live at "number E." It's in the USPS database so I don't know why it gets rejected so often.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:35 AM on May 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
scruss: you have to hit digit/alpha shift for every hosin' character.
If you have an iPhone you can press the alpha shift button, slide up to the digit you want and release, whereupon it returns to the alpha keyboard (number 3 here).
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:46 AM on May 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
If you have an iPhone you can press the alpha shift button, slide up to the digit you want and release, whereupon it returns to the alpha keyboard (number 3 here).
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:46 AM on May 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
The big French airline might accept apostrophes in place names but lots and lots of other sites don't. That plus the annoyance of Canadian postal codes makes online shopping a joy
posted by peppermind at 10:57 AM on May 1, 2016
posted by peppermind at 10:57 AM on May 1, 2016
If the entity collecting the phone number is not planning to robocall you, the only non-stupid design is to just give you a big text box and let you put whatever you want. If a person is going to be reading in from a support system in case they need to call you, there's no logical reason you shouldn't be able to type "555-1212 please call after 5pm EST". Although since country calling codes are a defined list, it's probably fine to ask for that as a separate field. And for god's sake don't auto-advance me to the next field once you think I have typed enough characters. I know how to use the tab key. Well unless you didn't bother to test the tab order on your form, which you probably didn't.
posted by freecellwizard at 11:28 AM on May 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by freecellwizard at 11:28 AM on May 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
cstross: slashes
Indeed. Here in Austria we use slashes to set off the street number from the stair number and door number in multi family buildings, so the short form of the address "Kaiserstraße 53, Stiege 2, Tür 19" would be "Kaiserstr. 53/2/19".
On at least one occasion this worked out in my favor with the big French airline you mentioned. Since I couldn't book online, I called their reservations number. I ended up saving a little money on the ticket, compared to what I would have paid online, and the agent was able to reserve aisle seats on two flights that I wouldn't have been able to reserve seats on had I ordered online.
posted by syzygy at 11:28 AM on May 1, 2016
Indeed. Here in Austria we use slashes to set off the street number from the stair number and door number in multi family buildings, so the short form of the address "Kaiserstraße 53, Stiege 2, Tür 19" would be "Kaiserstr. 53/2/19".
On at least one occasion this worked out in my favor with the big French airline you mentioned. Since I couldn't book online, I called their reservations number. I ended up saving a little money on the ticket, compared to what I would have paid online, and the agent was able to reserve aisle seats on two flights that I wouldn't have been able to reserve seats on had I ordered online.
posted by syzygy at 11:28 AM on May 1, 2016
As long as we're bitching about UI and number entry, can I ask why every alarm clock app known to man uses scrolling rotary selectors to input the time I want my alarm set for? How is that easier than just popping up a text box and the number pad and letting me type in a time?
posted by jacquilynne at 11:43 AM on May 1, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 11:43 AM on May 1, 2016 [6 favorites]
> An extra horrible place in hell is reserved for American coders who have a pop-up menu for "country" if your nation of residence is non-US.
That's a tricky one, because even setting aside considerations of geographic literacy among website owners in the U.S., the website's developer's hands might be tied if $_CORPORATION's data requires an internal system of country codes, whether due to legacy data structures established in the 1970s or even worse, due to having to map disjoint sets of internally-developed country codes owned by two separate companies that merged some time before Czechoslovakia split. Smaller companies that, themselves, don't particularly have to care about exactitude might still be subject to their vendor's requirements; the postal system, UPS, FedEx, etc., all use standard country names or codes and expect them.
So to avoid having to add a layer of freeform text parsing on top of that, forcing users to pick from a list is the only sane solution, unless there's an internal stakeholder genuinely keen on the challenge of parsing freeform text entry, especially since the site (assuming that, aside from this issue, it's otherwise well-designed) may additionally have to deal with the complications of multiple languages and writing systems as well. "Great Britain", "Grande-Bretagne" and "大不列顛島" are all the same place and it would seem cruelly petty to reject any of them because of simple typos...
The merciful and blessedly easy thing to do -- requiring absolutely no cleverness or Javascript -- is to make the obvious or most popular picks also the easiest ones, duplicating "United States", "Canada", and "Great Britain" at the top of the list in addition to their alphabetical locations. (If the site's development team is savvy, this can be tuned by locale; when the site is viewed in a French-language locale the user might instead see the French-localized names for "France", "Canada", and "Democratic Republic of Congo"). This really ought to be obvious to any developer these days, since it's common enough that they've probably witnessed it elsewhere.
What could be a little better -- but requires more effort -- is a Select2-type menu that can easily filter based on entry; then you only need a couple keystrokes to figure out whether this particular damned site expects "Great Britain", "United Kingdom", or something else, and even if your first guess is correct you don't have to scroll through a few hundred entries to get to it. (Although in a way this feature exists natively -- every OS and browser at this point will navigate HTML option lists from the keyboard -- type 'G' for 'Great Britain' and you get the first entry starting with 'G' or the first entry starting with the closest letter after 'G' if there is no 'G' -- Windows will only let you type a single letter, so if you type 'GR' you skip to the 'R's, but OS X will take you to the first entry starting with 'GR'.)
In the recent past I've had to struggle through a website designed by incompetents who, despite creating a website intended to be used primarily, if not exclusively, by residents of Michigan, still force the user to pick "Michigan" from the middle of a list of all many-dozen U.S. states, territories, and military bases; and then specify the U.S. from the middle of the list of all countries known in the world circa 1998. Despite the site allowing form submission only if the U.S. was picked. And typing 'U' to speed through the option list didn't work because the United States was listed as 'The United States'.
It could have been worse, and probably is somewhere else.
posted by ardgedee at 11:52 AM on May 1, 2016 [8 favorites]
That's a tricky one, because even setting aside considerations of geographic literacy among website owners in the U.S., the website's developer's hands might be tied if $_CORPORATION's data requires an internal system of country codes, whether due to legacy data structures established in the 1970s or even worse, due to having to map disjoint sets of internally-developed country codes owned by two separate companies that merged some time before Czechoslovakia split. Smaller companies that, themselves, don't particularly have to care about exactitude might still be subject to their vendor's requirements; the postal system, UPS, FedEx, etc., all use standard country names or codes and expect them.
So to avoid having to add a layer of freeform text parsing on top of that, forcing users to pick from a list is the only sane solution, unless there's an internal stakeholder genuinely keen on the challenge of parsing freeform text entry, especially since the site (assuming that, aside from this issue, it's otherwise well-designed) may additionally have to deal with the complications of multiple languages and writing systems as well. "Great Britain", "Grande-Bretagne" and "大不列顛島" are all the same place and it would seem cruelly petty to reject any of them because of simple typos...
The merciful and blessedly easy thing to do -- requiring absolutely no cleverness or Javascript -- is to make the obvious or most popular picks also the easiest ones, duplicating "United States", "Canada", and "Great Britain" at the top of the list in addition to their alphabetical locations. (If the site's development team is savvy, this can be tuned by locale; when the site is viewed in a French-language locale the user might instead see the French-localized names for "France", "Canada", and "Democratic Republic of Congo"). This really ought to be obvious to any developer these days, since it's common enough that they've probably witnessed it elsewhere.
What could be a little better -- but requires more effort -- is a Select2-type menu that can easily filter based on entry; then you only need a couple keystrokes to figure out whether this particular damned site expects "Great Britain", "United Kingdom", or something else, and even if your first guess is correct you don't have to scroll through a few hundred entries to get to it. (Although in a way this feature exists natively -- every OS and browser at this point will navigate HTML option lists from the keyboard -- type 'G' for 'Great Britain' and you get the first entry starting with 'G' or the first entry starting with the closest letter after 'G' if there is no 'G' -- Windows will only let you type a single letter, so if you type 'GR' you skip to the 'R's, but OS X will take you to the first entry starting with 'GR'.)
In the recent past I've had to struggle through a website designed by incompetents who, despite creating a website intended to be used primarily, if not exclusively, by residents of Michigan, still force the user to pick "Michigan" from the middle of a list of all many-dozen U.S. states, territories, and military bases; and then specify the U.S. from the middle of the list of all countries known in the world circa 1998. Despite the site allowing form submission only if the U.S. was picked. And typing 'U' to speed through the option list didn't work because the United States was listed as 'The United States'.
It could have been worse, and probably is somewhere else.
posted by ardgedee at 11:52 AM on May 1, 2016 [8 favorites]
If the form really is limited to NANP countries and the tab order is correct, and is only used on desktop, the drop down thing isn't that bad/user hostile on a modern browser. They all find-as-you-type now, so you can just click the first field, begin typing and tab between the fields same as if it had text boxes.
As a DBA, I definitely understand the desire to have well-formatted data. However, as a DBA, it infuriates me when people fail to take into account the full variety of addressing and telephone number formats.
BTW, it's not that Visa's AVS system is broken, it deliberately only verifies the numeric portions of the address. ;) (In the US, at least. They may verify letters in postal codes, I'm not positive about that) Furthermore, some merchants deliberately only ask for verification of the postal code) You'd be surprised, or maybe not, how many people can't/won't spell the name of their street and city correctly.
This is why I generally use the USPS API to verify US addresses. Unlike some folks, I let people say "no, this really is my address even though it isn't in the database." My SO's office doesn't get postal mail. It's not even in the DB. If you want to send something there your options are FedEx and UPS.
posted by wierdo at 11:59 AM on May 1, 2016
As a DBA, I definitely understand the desire to have well-formatted data. However, as a DBA, it infuriates me when people fail to take into account the full variety of addressing and telephone number formats.
BTW, it's not that Visa's AVS system is broken, it deliberately only verifies the numeric portions of the address. ;) (In the US, at least. They may verify letters in postal codes, I'm not positive about that) Furthermore, some merchants deliberately only ask for verification of the postal code) You'd be surprised, or maybe not, how many people can't/won't spell the name of their street and city correctly.
This is why I generally use the USPS API to verify US addresses. Unlike some folks, I let people say "no, this really is my address even though it isn't in the database." My SO's office doesn't get postal mail. It's not even in the DB. If you want to send something there your options are FedEx and UPS.
posted by wierdo at 11:59 AM on May 1, 2016
My street address includes characters that cannot be accurately represented in fewer than 4 dimensions. I'm pretty annoyed by the lengths that I have to go to to get anything delivered, but on the other hand I got a great deal on the rent.
posted by indubitable at 12:11 PM on May 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by indubitable at 12:11 PM on May 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
the entity collecting the phone number
Good - this spices data entry up, with a little X-files vibe
posted by thelonius at 12:14 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
Good - this spices data entry up, with a little X-files vibe
posted by thelonius at 12:14 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
As long as we're bitching about UI and number entry, can I ask why every alarm clock app known to man uses scrolling rotary selectors to input the time I want my alarm set for? How is that easier than just popping up a text box and the number pad and letting me type in a time?
This is one of the few annoyances I had on switching from Android to iOS. My default Android clock app let you enter numbers directly, the iOS equivalent does the weird bullshit w/ rotary selectors.
posted by indubitable at 12:15 PM on May 1, 2016
This is one of the few annoyances I had on switching from Android to iOS. My default Android clock app let you enter numbers directly, the iOS equivalent does the weird bullshit w/ rotary selectors.
posted by indubitable at 12:15 PM on May 1, 2016
An extra horrible place in hell is reserved for American coders who have a pop-up menu for "country" if your nation of residence is non-US.
That place is already occupied by Ryanair's web team, where the "country of residence" field actually meant "do you want to pay extra for travel insurance" and had a "No insurance" country hidden away somewhere in the middle of the list. Wouldn't surprise me if they work from that place, actually.
posted by effbot at 12:20 PM on May 1, 2016 [8 favorites]
That place is already occupied by Ryanair's web team, where the "country of residence" field actually meant "do you want to pay extra for travel insurance" and had a "No insurance" country hidden away somewhere in the middle of the list. Wouldn't surprise me if they work from that place, actually.
posted by effbot at 12:20 PM on May 1, 2016 [8 favorites]
A home grown handwriting recognition window with the DONE button CSS'd just off screen, which focuses the field in red, deletes the content and pops up an alert that you can only use numerals when you try to tab to it.
posted by lucidium at 1:03 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by lucidium at 1:03 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
Oh god, Ryanair. Who insist on bold letters that you enter your name as it appears in your passport, then brings up the frankly insulting error "please only use letters" or words to that effect. Æ ø and å are letters, damn it! You're the one who asked for my name specifically as it appears in my passport rather than the anglicised version that throws slightly fewer form errors!
posted by Dysk at 1:07 PM on May 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 1:07 PM on May 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
wierdo: "Unlike some folks, I let people say "no, this really is my address even though it isn't in the database.""
This should be a more common solution than it is. A little bit of an "are you sure that's right?" if something doesn't match the expected format, but still lets them submit it that way, rather than going DOES NOT VALIDATE and stop them from continuing.
posted by RobotHero at 1:07 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
This should be a more common solution than it is. A little bit of an "are you sure that's right?" if something doesn't match the expected format, but still lets them submit it that way, rather than going DOES NOT VALIDATE and stop them from continuing.
posted by RobotHero at 1:07 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
Best of all is the Big French Airline that doesn't comprehend that it is legitimately possible to have non-numerical, non-alphabetical characters in your street address
Okay, I give. Spaces? Degrees?
Commas and slashes, definitely. The school I worked at in Spain was at "Barriada San Antonio, s/n", meaning it was in the San Antonio neighborhood and had no street number (sin número). It didn't really need one since . . . it was the school. The postman just brought the mail to the big school building.
posted by chainsofreedom at 1:47 PM on May 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
Okay, I give. Spaces? Degrees?
Commas and slashes, definitely. The school I worked at in Spain was at "Barriada San Antonio, s/n", meaning it was in the San Antonio neighborhood and had no street number (sin número). It didn't really need one since . . . it was the school. The postman just brought the mail to the big school building.
posted by chainsofreedom at 1:47 PM on May 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
Only marginally less awful is the field that asks you to enter your 16-digit credit card number, and allows spaces but also enforces a 16-character limit, forcing you to go back and delete the three spaces you typed so that the number will fit.
My bank does that, except it deletes the entire contents of the field on the first backspace.
posted by lastobelus at 1:48 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
My bank does that, except it deletes the entire contents of the field on the first backspace.
posted by lastobelus at 1:48 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
Okay, I give. Spaces? Degrees?
Slashes.
Every apartment I had in LA had a fraction in the address, as in "1234 1/4 N Alvarado St," read as "1234 and a quarter."
When I tried to sign up for California's health insurance market, the online form didn't accept special characters. It was a total headache.
posted by teponaztli at 2:05 PM on May 1, 2016
Slashes.
Every apartment I had in LA had a fraction in the address, as in "1234 1/4 N Alvarado St," read as "1234 and a quarter."
When I tried to sign up for California's health insurance market, the online form didn't accept special characters. It was a total headache.
posted by teponaztli at 2:05 PM on May 1, 2016
Frankly insulting error "please only use letters" or words to that effect
KLM calls non-ASCII characters "illegal", which I find a bit funny (also weird, since iiuc the Dutch do use accents themselves).
For years, my US publisher sent me paper checks (which cost a small fortune to cash) since their bank couldn't figure out how to transfer money to a bank that had an Ö in the address. Then I moved to a city with an Ü in the name. Didn't work either, of course. Then to a city with an Ä in the name... (but at that point the royalties were symbolic enough that I didn't bother cashing them, which resulted in someone taking another look at things, and this time they figured out how to make the transfers work :facepalm:).
posted by effbot at 2:14 PM on May 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
KLM calls non-ASCII characters "illegal", which I find a bit funny (also weird, since iiuc the Dutch do use accents themselves).
For years, my US publisher sent me paper checks (which cost a small fortune to cash) since their bank couldn't figure out how to transfer money to a bank that had an Ö in the address. Then I moved to a city with an Ü in the name. Didn't work either, of course. Then to a city with an Ä in the name... (but at that point the royalties were symbolic enough that I didn't bother cashing them, which resulted in someone taking another look at things, and this time they figured out how to make the transfers work :facepalm:).
posted by effbot at 2:14 PM on May 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
And you know why they won't accept slashes? Because somewhere along the line they decided that, rather than properly escape the fecking text you typed before putting it in the database, they'd prefer to just enforce an arbitrary set of character restrictions at the front-end.
The inability to handle something as basic as a slash character is a reasonable indicator that the developers haven't much of a clue how to secure a database against SQL injection attacks. These are the sort of people who ultimately end up inadvertently 'sharing' your credit card details.
OK, it's not quite as simple as that. They may have legacy systems that don't like slashes. But my money's usually on incompetence rather than backward-compatibility.
posted by pipeski at 2:20 PM on May 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
The inability to handle something as basic as a slash character is a reasonable indicator that the developers haven't much of a clue how to secure a database against SQL injection attacks. These are the sort of people who ultimately end up inadvertently 'sharing' your credit card details.
OK, it's not quite as simple as that. They may have legacy systems that don't like slashes. But my money's usually on incompetence rather than backward-compatibility.
posted by pipeski at 2:20 PM on May 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
>> There must be a way to figure out the minimum/maximum number of clicks it would take to reach a designated phone number. A binary search would be my first guess. Now I'm going to have to work it out but that might actually be pretty quick.
> O(log2(n)) where in this case, n is what, 999 999 9999? So 34 clicks?
Of course there's nothing saying that you have to use just two buttons to partition the search space.
If you have a user click on one of four buttons for each partition, you can get it down to
That just leaves the absurd UX challenge of somehow getting users to mentally partition their phone number into one of ten buckets and click on the correct corresponding button, ten times in a row. Hard to picture how that would work. Still, entertaining as a thought experiment.
posted by john hadron collider at 2:28 PM on May 1, 2016 [8 favorites]
> O(log2(n)) where in this case, n is what, 999 999 9999? So 34 clicks?
Of course there's nothing saying that you have to use just two buttons to partition the search space.
If you have a user click on one of four buttons for each partition, you can get it down to
log4n -- that's 17 clicks for a ten-digit phone number. And if you jump to, say, ten buttons for each partition, you can knock it down to log10n -- just 10 clicks for a ten-digit phone number!That just leaves the absurd UX challenge of somehow getting users to mentally partition their phone number into one of ten buckets and click on the correct corresponding button, ten times in a row. Hard to picture how that would work. Still, entertaining as a thought experiment.
posted by john hadron collider at 2:28 PM on May 1, 2016 [8 favorites]
And you know why they won't accept slashes? Because somewhere along the line they decided that, rather than properly escape the fecking text you typed before putting it in the database, they'd prefer to just enforce an arbitrary set of character restrictions at the front-end.
Well, defense in depth is also a thing. Also known as ¿por qué no los todos?
posted by effbot at 2:29 PM on May 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
Well, defense in depth is also a thing. Also known as ¿por qué no los todos?
posted by effbot at 2:29 PM on May 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
And yeah, I linked to the library earlier, but even if you're not into reading code, the Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Phone Numbers article is worth reading. Even if you're not a programmer :-)
posted by effbot at 2:49 PM on May 1, 2016
posted by effbot at 2:49 PM on May 1, 2016
And if you jump to, say, ten buttons for each partition, you can knock it down to
Yeah but now you've collapsed the best case and the worst case so that every schmoe has exactly 10 clicks to enter their phone number, and I object to this because as a Libertarian, I'm pretty confident that I will get the one phone number on this planet that only requires one click.
posted by indubitable at 3:33 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
log10n -- just 10 clicks for a ten-digit phone number!Yeah but now you've collapsed the best case and the worst case so that every schmoe has exactly 10 clicks to enter their phone number, and I object to this because as a Libertarian, I'm pretty confident that I will get the one phone number on this planet that only requires one click.
posted by indubitable at 3:33 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
There's a website I can't create an account for beacuse they apparently have a database of US city names for some reason, and they don't accept cities that don't match. "Saint Ann" and "St Ann" don't work because it's in the database as "St. Ann" ... but I am not permitted to type a period in the city field.
If I'm remembering correctly, this was actually FedEx.
posted by Foosnark at 5:05 PM on May 1, 2016
If I'm remembering correctly, this was actually FedEx.
posted by Foosnark at 5:05 PM on May 1, 2016
Pro tip: on long drop downs of states or countries you can usually select - or tab to - the drop down and type the first letter of the word you're looking for and be skipped to the section of the drop down you need. On a drop down of two-letter state abbreviations you can type - for example - "oh" quickly and that will select OH.
posted by bendy at 6:43 PM on May 1, 2016
posted by bendy at 6:43 PM on May 1, 2016
Last week some software giant (Oracle, probably, damn them) asked me to input my phone number, including the digits required to make such a call from other countries.
Now, perhaps a person who often travels internationally -- that is, who often travels internationally and yet still uses a telephone -- might know these off the top of their head. But I haven't had to call my own country from outside my own country in like 25 years, and even then I had to get an AT&T operator to help sometimes. How many people can actually do this off the top of their head?
WTF, web designers
WTF, Oracle?
WTF, organization so in the grip of their sales team that a CRM makes design decisions?
posted by wenestvedt at 7:09 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
Now, perhaps a person who often travels internationally -- that is, who often travels internationally and yet still uses a telephone -- might know these off the top of their head. But I haven't had to call my own country from outside my own country in like 25 years, and even then I had to get an AT&T operator to help sometimes. How many people can actually do this off the top of their head?
WTF, organization so in the grip of their sales team that a CRM makes design decisions?
posted by wenestvedt at 7:09 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
...to deal with the complications of multiple languages and writing systems as well. "Great Britain", "Grande-Bretagne" and "大不列顛島" are all the same place and it would seem cruelly petty to reject any of them because of simple typos...
Oh, it's even better: Should you list Taiwan as a country? How to list Macedonia or Cyprus? What country should be used for someone on the Crimea peninsula? Try to guess? And then, at best, get mocked and ridiculed for getting it wrong when the code can't figure it out?
posted by MikeKD at 7:40 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
Oh, it's even better: Should you list Taiwan as a country? How to list Macedonia or Cyprus? What country should be used for someone on the Crimea peninsula? Try to guess? And then, at best, get mocked and ridiculed for getting it wrong when the code can't figure it out?
posted by MikeKD at 7:40 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
Last week some software giant (Oracle, probably, damn them) asked me to input my phone number, including the digits required to make such a call from other countries.
This is what the + sign is for - it's a stand-in for whatever specific code any country uses to indicate that this is an international call (000, 007, 112, etc). So your phone number would be:
+[Country Code][Area Code][Rest of Number]
posted by divabat at 7:58 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
This is what the + sign is for - it's a stand-in for whatever specific code any country uses to indicate that this is an international call (000, 007, 112, etc). So your phone number would be:
+[Country Code][Area Code][Rest of Number]
posted by divabat at 7:58 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
Last week some software giant (Oracle, probably, damn them) asked me to input my phone number, including the digits required to make such a call from other countries.
Now, perhaps a person who often travels internationally -- that is, who often travels internationally and yet still uses a telephone -- might know these off the top of their head. But I haven't had to call my own country from outside my own country in like 25 years, and even then I had to get an AT&T operator to help sometimes. How many people can actually do this off the top of their head?
It was pretty common for businesses in Hong Kong to list their phone numbers with the international dialing code in local advertising when I lived there, for example. It's fairly common knowledge in a lot of places.
posted by Dysk at 8:19 PM on May 1, 2016
Now, perhaps a person who often travels internationally -- that is, who often travels internationally and yet still uses a telephone -- might know these off the top of their head. But I haven't had to call my own country from outside my own country in like 25 years, and even then I had to get an AT&T operator to help sometimes. How many people can actually do this off the top of their head?
It was pretty common for businesses in Hong Kong to list their phone numbers with the international dialing code in local advertising when I lived there, for example. It's fairly common knowledge in a lot of places.
posted by Dysk at 8:19 PM on May 1, 2016
→ the only way to navigate was by repeatedly selecting the adjacent month
One of the more common JS date controls looks like it would work this way, but if you click on the (unadorned, no visual cues) year, you get to select by year instead of month.
posted by scruss at 8:25 PM on May 1, 2016
One of the more common JS date controls looks like it would work this way, but if you click on the (unadorned, no visual cues) year, you get to select by year instead of month.
posted by scruss at 8:25 PM on May 1, 2016
but if you click on the (unadorned, no visual cues) year,
Ugh. "Discoverable" interfaces like this need to DIAFuckingF.
posted by MikeKD at 8:55 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
Ugh. "Discoverable" interfaces like this need to DIAFuckingF.
posted by MikeKD at 8:55 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
Okay all you fraction smart-asses, fractions are numerical, which is why I was confused. But non-fraction use of slashes (omg Scotland) and s/n are two excellent things.
posted by dame at 9:15 PM on May 1, 2016
posted by dame at 9:15 PM on May 1, 2016
Gee, I wasn't trying to be a smartass.
I thought the comment was referring to alphanumeric characters. Fractions are numbers, but the slashes in them aren't alphanumeric characters, so they get rejected.
posted by teponaztli at 9:18 PM on May 1, 2016
I thought the comment was referring to alphanumeric characters. Fractions are numbers, but the slashes in them aren't alphanumeric characters, so they get rejected.
posted by teponaztli at 9:18 PM on May 1, 2016
oh my god the binary search one adfkgjfgh
posted by en forme de poire at 11:14 PM on May 1, 2016
posted by en forme de poire at 11:14 PM on May 1, 2016
(a little disappointed that it is a parody instead of an actual web 1.0 heinosity)
posted by en forme de poire at 11:14 PM on May 1, 2016
posted by en forme de poire at 11:14 PM on May 1, 2016
Here in Austria we use slashes to set off the street number from the stair number and door number in multi family buildings, so the short form of the address "Kaiserstraße 53, Stiege 2, Tür 19" would be "Kaiserstr. 53/2/19".
An address that has a pretty good chance of failing in various interesting ways.
Expanding it a bit more to cover the failure cases that have screwed up ordering things from other countries for me in my last two addresses:
Kaiser-Franz-Müller-Straße 53 | Top 19A
1010 Wien
Austria
An address that has a pretty good chance of failing in various interesting ways.
Expanding it a bit more to cover the failure cases that have screwed up ordering things from other countries for me in my last two addresses:
Kaiser-Franz-Müller-Straße 53 | Top 19A
1010 Wien
Austria
- Chances are that there will be no 'apartment number' field, so 'Top 19' may need to go in the street address.
- Any of -, ß, ü, | or / may screw things up.
- Yes, really, there's a pipe symbol in my street address – it gets used interchangeably with the slash.
- If 'apartment number' is a field, spaces may not be accepted.
- Somehow, the apartment number field may be thrown away or not used in mailing labels. If this happens, I'll still probably get the letter, but the post/parcel carrier will either lecture me in person or in a written note about that field. If, on the other hand, I need to sign for it, and the apartment number is missing, I probably won't get the letter/parcel.
- My postal code is 4 digits. It is not 5 digits with a leading zero. This one mostly comes up with German companies, because "ZIP Code*:" is a huge red flag that everything else WRT addresses is going to go to hell anyway.
- If the list of countries offered to me goes "Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria", I expect to find "Austria" under A, rather than, helpfully, under wherever Ö got sorted to.
- Note the lack of state, province, county, etc. If that's a required field, and especially if it's a two-letter required field, something is going to go really wrong.
- Postal code<space>City name is the correct and expected format.
Vienna, Vienna, Austria
1010
will probably get there, but again may come with a note because it was a pain to sort.
As long as we're bitching about UI and number entry, can I ask why every alarm clock app known to man uses scrolling rotary selectors to input the time I want my alarm set for?
So you can play a fun game of "how long will I sleep" roulette?
posted by pianissimo at 8:03 AM on May 2, 2016
So you can play a fun game of "how long will I sleep" roulette?
posted by pianissimo at 8:03 AM on May 2, 2016
Dysk: It's fairly common knowledge in a lot of places.
Oh, I will grant you that -- and when I was in Europe back in the 90s I did need to know a bunch of them. (At one point I could reel off the full string of digits: just pick up a BT payphone and punch in the full code for AT&T, plus my calling card number, plus the destination number. It was like having a woodpecker on the end of my arm.)
But it struck me as funny for two reasons: first, knowing the incoming code for my own country seems sort of like knowing what I look like from behind. That is, I need help to discover it the first time because I don't do it very often.
And second, as an American I am kind of expected to be ignorant and clumsy. Given that Oracle's web site already has my login filtered at the country level, why can't they just insert that string into my record automagically so it's always correct, instead of counting on me to know it -- and to do it right? If these are so difficult to get accurately, why waste all the programmer time on training & validation but then let a st00pid user input the values?
posted by wenestvedt at 8:37 AM on May 2, 2016
Oh, I will grant you that -- and when I was in Europe back in the 90s I did need to know a bunch of them. (At one point I could reel off the full string of digits: just pick up a BT payphone and punch in the full code for AT&T, plus my calling card number, plus the destination number. It was like having a woodpecker on the end of my arm.)
But it struck me as funny for two reasons: first, knowing the incoming code for my own country seems sort of like knowing what I look like from behind. That is, I need help to discover it the first time because I don't do it very often.
And second, as an American I am kind of expected to be ignorant and clumsy. Given that Oracle's web site already has my login filtered at the country level, why can't they just insert that string into my record automagically so it's always correct, instead of counting on me to know it -- and to do it right? If these are so difficult to get accurately, why waste all the programmer time on training & validation but then let a st00pid user input the values?
posted by wenestvedt at 8:37 AM on May 2, 2016
For Canadians, it helps that our provinces have two letter abbreviations
This was done explicitly to be compatible with the US system. It happened in the 1990s.
It still looks weird to me to write ON instead of Ont., or AB instead of Alta., though the amputation of P.E.I. to PE is the one that really does look sad and untoward.
Not a huge thing, but I wish we'd done a counter deal to switch them to a sane date format in return.
posted by bonehead at 9:16 AM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
This was done explicitly to be compatible with the US system. It happened in the 1990s.
It still looks weird to me to write ON instead of Ont., or AB instead of Alta., though the amputation of P.E.I. to PE is the one that really does look sad and untoward.
Not a huge thing, but I wish we'd done a counter deal to switch them to a sane date format in return.
posted by bonehead at 9:16 AM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
In fairness, the US changed a bit, too: The USPS changed the abbreviation for the U.S. state of Nebraska from NB to NE in November 1969 to avoid a conflict with New Brunswick.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:30 AM on May 2, 2016
posted by Chrysostom at 9:30 AM on May 2, 2016
Also, Missouri's postal code was shortened by one letter (to simply MO) to avoid conflict with one Mister Moses Harry Horowitz (known professionally as "Moe" Howard).
posted by wenestvedt at 10:27 AM on May 2, 2016
posted by wenestvedt at 10:27 AM on May 2, 2016
All N-states I read as North.
NB = North Braska
NH = North Hampshire
ND = North Dakota
NM = North Mexico
NY = North York
NV = North Vada
NJ = North Jersey
NC = North Carolina
I am surprised how many problems this doesn't cause.
posted by rebent at 11:31 AM on May 2, 2016 [6 favorites]
NB = North Braska
NH = North Hampshire
ND = North Dakota
NM = North Mexico
NY = North York
NV = North Vada
NJ = North Jersey
NC = North Carolina
I am surprised how many problems this doesn't cause.
posted by rebent at 11:31 AM on May 2, 2016 [6 favorites]
Around here, we have a neighborhood that has all the street names end in "Nene" (as in Heechee Nene, Ostin Nene, etc. etc.). It is great fun trying to send things to my friend, and having the automated online forms tell me that this is not a valid way to designate a road.
Take it up with the cutesy city planners, who thought this would be a brilliant concept for a neighborhood naming scheme, but in the meantime, yes the street exists and I want my stuff to get to the right person.
posted by PearlRose at 2:06 PM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
Take it up with the cutesy city planners, who thought this would be a brilliant concept for a neighborhood naming scheme, but in the meantime, yes the street exists and I want my stuff to get to the right person.
posted by PearlRose at 2:06 PM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
As long as we're bitching about UI and number entry, can I ask why every alarm clock app known to man uses scrolling rotary selectors to input the time I want my alarm set for? How is that easier than just popping up a text box and the number pad and letting me type in a time?
Yes, and then every night you're terrified you're going to scroll past 6:00 to 6:59 without noticing, setting off a chain of events such as to ultimately destroy your life. It's such a bad system.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 4:13 PM on May 2, 2016
Yes, and then every night you're terrified you're going to scroll past 6:00 to 6:59 without noticing, setting off a chain of events such as to ultimately destroy your life. It's such a bad system.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 4:13 PM on May 2, 2016
I'm very much going on a tangent but I just did the Canadian census online, and if you leave a question blank you'll get a, "You left this question blank," notification but it gives you the option to insist you meant to do that.
Maybe it's the fact that it's the census they can afford some things that some small-fry mailing list can't afford. Or maybe it's because they have the force of law behind them. But it was a very smooth and pleasant experience, as far as filling out forms goes.
posted by RobotHero at 10:10 PM on May 2, 2016
Maybe it's the fact that it's the census they can afford some things that some small-fry mailing list can't afford. Or maybe it's because they have the force of law behind them. But it was a very smooth and pleasant experience, as far as filling out forms goes.
posted by RobotHero at 10:10 PM on May 2, 2016
« Older I have a story to tell. | Dance around a flowery pole, or topple the... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:30 AM on May 1, 2016 [4 favorites]