It's time to admit the ugly truth. I just don't get Facebook. And with the rumour that Google Me is on the way to be the anti-Facebook, I'm finally feeling brave enough to say it!
I've been a Facebook user for some time now, maybe a year or two. In that time I've collected connections with a fair few friends, my children, and even some of their friends. I've managed to update my profile and upload photos, I've commented on other people's photos, and I've sent messages back and forth.
All of which makes me sound like a regular user of Facebook, right? Except, I've also managed to send one personal message to a wider audience by mistake, leave personal notes on a wall when I didn't mean to, and lose comments I'd made and be unable to find them.
I've had requests to take part in surveys, that I've abandoned due to applications wanting to install and requests to invite all of my friends to take part too. I appear to be following one person (a recruiter) who posts regular (and painful) updates on everything except their bowel movements - and can't for the life of me figure out how to stop receiving them.
I think for the most part it's a visual thing. Looking at the Facebook interface I see options everywhere, and order just doesn't seem to fall out of that chaos - at least for me.
I'm very interested in what Google might be up to with Google Me. Wave was more of a ripple, and Buzz little more than a whisper. Maybe Google Me will roar...
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Virgin Mobile doesn't want my money...
UPDATE: Since writing this blog and posting about it on Twitter, Virgin Mobile have kindly contacted me and resolved my problem. Apparently, they do want my money after all..!
Recently I made a change of carrier, switching from Virgin Mobile to Telstra.
There were various reasons for this, ranging from poor reception at my house to some previous billing issues and poor customer support, although to be fair to Virgin Mobile the main reason was getting hold of a new HTC Desire from the local Telstra shop. Part of the switch involved paying my last bill and a couple of hundred extra dollars to close out my Virgin Mobile account.
Everything has gone relatively smoothly, but I've hit a small snag; it appears that Virgin Mobile doesn't want my money. Not only that, apparently they don't want to know about it, either...
It started just after I bought the Desire. I had just received a bill from Virgin, and thanks to their new 'we'll charge you more for a paper bill' policy it arrived online. So a few days after I'd switched I logged onto to the VM site, to pay that bill. When I tried to log in (using my pin and phone number) it rejected me, saying that these details were incorrect. I tried again, but quickly realised what had happened - since I'd ported my number to Telstra and in effect closed my account, I no longer had an account to log in to. Ah.
But I figured this wouldn't go on for long - now that the account was closed, Virgin would realise this and send me a final bill.
It arrived this morning. And, you guessed it, it's a virtual bill - which I can access, as soon as I go online and log into my account. Which, as you probably recall, I no longer have.
Hmm.
I tried again, just in case they'd reactivated the login to let me see the bill, but got the same result. Nope, I no longer exist. Okay. So, I thought maybe I'd respond to the email, and tell support I couldn't log in to SEE the bill, let alone pay it. But, as you'll probably have guessed if you've been through anything similar, it was a classic 'no-reply' address.
With the mission impossible theme now running through my head I returned to the site, and selected the support option. Did I already have an account, it asked? Yes, I said. Okay, the site replies, log in. Great. So I tried saying no. It offered to let me 'create one' - not exactly the help I needed.
Giving up, I tried the contact us option. Sure enough there's an email link - which once again asks me to log into my non-existent account to email support about the non-existent bill I'd not like to pay.
As far as Virgin is concerned, I don't exist - and they have no interest in letting me pay the bill that my non-existent self has to pay. Apparently.
There's a 1300 number to ring, so I'll give that a shot - but on past experience, I'm foreseeing around an hour of waiting and a big headache.
If only these companies realised how difficult they are making it on their customers to actually hand over the cash they want to pay..!!!
Recently I made a change of carrier, switching from Virgin Mobile to Telstra.
There were various reasons for this, ranging from poor reception at my house to some previous billing issues and poor customer support, although to be fair to Virgin Mobile the main reason was getting hold of a new HTC Desire from the local Telstra shop. Part of the switch involved paying my last bill and a couple of hundred extra dollars to close out my Virgin Mobile account.
Everything has gone relatively smoothly, but I've hit a small snag; it appears that Virgin Mobile doesn't want my money. Not only that, apparently they don't want to know about it, either...
It started just after I bought the Desire. I had just received a bill from Virgin, and thanks to their new 'we'll charge you more for a paper bill' policy it arrived online. So a few days after I'd switched I logged onto to the VM site, to pay that bill. When I tried to log in (using my pin and phone number) it rejected me, saying that these details were incorrect. I tried again, but quickly realised what had happened - since I'd ported my number to Telstra and in effect closed my account, I no longer had an account to log in to. Ah.
But I figured this wouldn't go on for long - now that the account was closed, Virgin would realise this and send me a final bill.
It arrived this morning. And, you guessed it, it's a virtual bill - which I can access, as soon as I go online and log into my account. Which, as you probably recall, I no longer have.
Hmm.
I tried again, just in case they'd reactivated the login to let me see the bill, but got the same result. Nope, I no longer exist. Okay. So, I thought maybe I'd respond to the email, and tell support I couldn't log in to SEE the bill, let alone pay it. But, as you'll probably have guessed if you've been through anything similar, it was a classic 'no-reply' address.
With the mission impossible theme now running through my head I returned to the site, and selected the support option. Did I already have an account, it asked? Yes, I said. Okay, the site replies, log in. Great. So I tried saying no. It offered to let me 'create one' - not exactly the help I needed.
Giving up, I tried the contact us option. Sure enough there's an email link - which once again asks me to log into my non-existent account to email support about the non-existent bill I'd not like to pay.
As far as Virgin is concerned, I don't exist - and they have no interest in letting me pay the bill that my non-existent self has to pay. Apparently.
There's a 1300 number to ring, so I'll give that a shot - but on past experience, I'm foreseeing around an hour of waiting and a big headache.
If only these companies realised how difficult they are making it on their customers to actually hand over the cash they want to pay..!!!
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Software running rings around us
I've had two less than fun experiences this week in terrible, horrendous user experience - mostly related to software, but also very closely tied in with horrible customer support.
The first was with Sony, in regards to a problem I've had on a brand new (and top of the line) laptop.
Case 1: Sony and the never ending update
The Sony Vaio Z I've been playing with the last few weeks is turning out to be a wonderful machine, and I'm loving it. But this week, I hit a small snag.
A piece of software called Vaio Update ran, and told me that there were several pieces of software needing updating. I hate bloatware along with the best of us, but for my sins I let it run, and they all updated. The dreaded 'you must now reboot' message came up, I killed my apps and rebooted, and the world was fine.
For a minute or two, that is, until the update software ran again - and promptly told me that two of the updates needed to run again.
To cut a long story short, this ran a number of times before I twigged that it was updating the same two versions of the same two programs continuously, in a little vicious circle. It would download them, attempt to install them, give me errors that they were already installed, force a reboot, run, and then tell me they still needed updating.
From a software user experience point of view, there were two killer problems. First the program automatically ran on reboot, beginning the cycle over again, and second (and more importantly) it forced a reboot with no choice after it failed - despite the fact that nothing had even been installed. No buttons to cancel, no X to close the dialog, even force closing the popup causes windows problems.
I contacted Sony about this, and received the standard first line of support response - basically an automated email telling me to run the update - completely missing the point that it was the update itself that was going wrong.
It took several other emails and even a PDF of screen shots to get across that this wasn't a user error - and now several days have disappeared without a further word. Nice customer service.
Case 2: NewScientist and the unusable user name
I love reading NewScientist, and recently decided to subscribe. I did that, and then once it was paid for went onto their site to register, so I could read the online content.
The site asked me for my subscriber number and surname, then asked me to enter a username, password and email address.
When I entered a username I use for sites such as this, the site gave me an error, telling me the username was already in use - at which point I remembered I'd registered it previously. However when I went to log in, it told me the username had been cancelled. Ah.
So I created a new username, entered my email address, and tried again. This time, it told me that the email address I'd entered was connected to 'another' username, so I couldn't use it. Ah, indeed.
So, I tried using a different email address. This time I received a dire warning that this was a different email address to the one registered against my subscription, and that I should not proceed.
Catch 22 again - I couldn't use the username I wanted to, I couldn't revive or use the one I already had, I couldn't use the email address I normally use, and I couldn't use a new one without risking 'something' going wrong... And all I wanted to do was to read some content online...
I contacted NewScientist support, and explained what was going wrong. I told them that the original registration was still there, and could they maybe just attach it to my subscription, or remove it so I could re-register from scratch.
Again, the human element extended the terrible user experience. Again, I receive an email that is insulting in it's response and lack of match to my request for help. It simply tells me how to go online and register, with no attempt to even register the problems I'd listed.
To their credit within 24 hours of my response to this I had a second more personal response - although the words "We will contact the UK and see if we can get it set up at our end" were not exactly brimming with confidence...
Case 3: Google Adsense and Schrodinger's Cat
Ding ding, round three.
This week I finally got around to playing with the Google settings for my site, and needed to create an Adsense account to get a particular function working. I have Adwords and Gmail and several other Google functions, so loaded up the Adsense page and logged in.
It told me I didn't currently have an Adsense account, and asked me if I wanted to create one. I said yes, and away we went filling out forms for a page or two. All good so far.
Near the end of the process it asked if I had a Google account, and when I said yes it asked if I wanted to use that account for Adsense. Sure, I say, and enter my login details. It's at this point that the wheels well and truly fall off the cart.
This email address already has an Adsense account, the page tells me, and therefore I can't use it.
So, yet again we have a nice software led vicious circle - I don't have an Adsense account and therefore need to create one, but can't create one because I already have one. Like Schrodinger's
User Experience is so often written off as a nice-to-have, or as an almost irrelevant layer on top of the 'key' technology and content, the true cost - in terms of lost business and reputation alone - can be huge. If only these (and other) companies measured that cost, they may do more to pick up and respond to their emails.
The first was with Sony, in regards to a problem I've had on a brand new (and top of the line) laptop.
Case 1: Sony and the never ending update
The Sony Vaio Z I've been playing with the last few weeks is turning out to be a wonderful machine, and I'm loving it. But this week, I hit a small snag.
A piece of software called Vaio Update ran, and told me that there were several pieces of software needing updating. I hate bloatware along with the best of us, but for my sins I let it run, and they all updated. The dreaded 'you must now reboot' message came up, I killed my apps and rebooted, and the world was fine.
For a minute or two, that is, until the update software ran again - and promptly told me that two of the updates needed to run again.
To cut a long story short, this ran a number of times before I twigged that it was updating the same two versions of the same two programs continuously, in a little vicious circle. It would download them, attempt to install them, give me errors that they were already installed, force a reboot, run, and then tell me they still needed updating.
From a software user experience point of view, there were two killer problems. First the program automatically ran on reboot, beginning the cycle over again, and second (and more importantly) it forced a reboot with no choice after it failed - despite the fact that nothing had even been installed. No buttons to cancel, no X to close the dialog, even force closing the popup causes windows problems.
I contacted Sony about this, and received the standard first line of support response - basically an automated email telling me to run the update - completely missing the point that it was the update itself that was going wrong.
It took several other emails and even a PDF of screen shots to get across that this wasn't a user error - and now several days have disappeared without a further word. Nice customer service.
Case 2: NewScientist and the unusable user name
I love reading NewScientist, and recently decided to subscribe. I did that, and then once it was paid for went onto their site to register, so I could read the online content.
The site asked me for my subscriber number and surname, then asked me to enter a username, password and email address.
When I entered a username I use for sites such as this, the site gave me an error, telling me the username was already in use - at which point I remembered I'd registered it previously. However when I went to log in, it told me the username had been cancelled. Ah.
So I created a new username, entered my email address, and tried again. This time, it told me that the email address I'd entered was connected to 'another' username, so I couldn't use it. Ah, indeed.
So, I tried using a different email address. This time I received a dire warning that this was a different email address to the one registered against my subscription, and that I should not proceed.
Catch 22 again - I couldn't use the username I wanted to, I couldn't revive or use the one I already had, I couldn't use the email address I normally use, and I couldn't use a new one without risking 'something' going wrong... And all I wanted to do was to read some content online...
I contacted NewScientist support, and explained what was going wrong. I told them that the original registration was still there, and could they maybe just attach it to my subscription, or remove it so I could re-register from scratch.
Again, the human element extended the terrible user experience. Again, I receive an email that is insulting in it's response and lack of match to my request for help. It simply tells me how to go online and register, with no attempt to even register the problems I'd listed.
To their credit within 24 hours of my response to this I had a second more personal response - although the words "We will contact the UK and see if we can get it set up at our end" were not exactly brimming with confidence...
Case 3: Google Adsense and Schrodinger's Cat
Ding ding, round three.
This week I finally got around to playing with the Google settings for my site, and needed to create an Adsense account to get a particular function working. I have Adwords and Gmail and several other Google functions, so loaded up the Adsense page and logged in.
It told me I didn't currently have an Adsense account, and asked me if I wanted to create one. I said yes, and away we went filling out forms for a page or two. All good so far.
Near the end of the process it asked if I had a Google account, and when I said yes it asked if I wanted to use that account for Adsense. Sure, I say, and enter my login details. It's at this point that the wheels well and truly fall off the cart.
This email address already has an Adsense account, the page tells me, and therefore I can't use it.
So, yet again we have a nice software led vicious circle - I don't have an Adsense account and therefore need to create one, but can't create one because I already have one. Like Schrodinger's
User Experience is so often written off as a nice-to-have, or as an almost irrelevant layer on top of the 'key' technology and content, the true cost - in terms of lost business and reputation alone - can be huge. If only these (and other) companies measured that cost, they may do more to pick up and respond to their emails.
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