Category: Bad design

Posted on

Stupid Section 92 Amendments

Here in New Zealand we have to suffer a stupid Copyright Amendment Bill that makes changes to Copyright law that, conveniently for rights holders, removes a couple of hundred years’ worth of progress in the judicial system from an accusation of copyright infringement. Now, we are expected to believe, an accusation is enough, and an ISP will be liable if they don’t yank your internet connection, just in case. To top it off, there is no recourse whatsoever in the case of a mistaken accusation.

New Zealand's new Copyright Law presumes 'Guilt Upon Accusation' and will Cut Off Internet Connections without a trial. Join the black out protest against it!

Posted on

Advice to Vodafone NZ

This is a letter I wrote to Vodafone. I am SO incredibly fed-up with their BOLLOCKS voice menus, so I thought I’d be pro-active about it…

—
I want to talk to whomever developed the voice menus for 777, because I want to offer some free constructive criticism. I guess it is because I develop software for a living and dislike using poorly thought-out solutions.

The only time I (and probably loads of other people) ring 777 is when I (we) want to top up, probably at least half the time by credit card. If you check your logs, I’ll bet topping up is what people are doing at least 75% of the time.

Let us say that I want to top up my mobile using my credit card. Please refer to attached diagram. Here’s how it goes:

  1. Blah Blah Blah random announcement that I can’t skip by pressing a button. Too bad if I’m low on battery life.
  2. “…to top up your mobile, press 2” I press 2.
  3. “…to top up using a credit card, press 2” I press 2 again. So far so good.
  4. “To top up, press 1. For customer services, press 2.”This menu is completely redundant and should be removed. At this point, I am about to indicate (for the second time), that I want to top up my mobile with a credit card. Why would anyone with an IQ greater than a cabbage want customer services at this point? Customer Services is available by pressing 9 at the first menu.

    Customer Services should be globally available from any menu by pressing the same key, (for example 0), and help should similarly be available (for example the * key)

  5. By pressing 1, I finally get put through to something useful, where it asks me to enter my mobile and PIN. Fair enough, but wait! What’s this:
  6. “To register a credit card, press 1, to top up, press 2.” Fair enough I suppose, but I have already indicated (twice) that I want to top up my mobile using a credit card. Pressing 2 gives me yet another menu:
  7. “To top up your mobile, press 1. To top up another mobile, press 2.” This is now the fourth time I have had to tell the system that I want to top up my mobile with my credit card. For a use case that probably occurs more often than most of your other use cases (check your logs), That is three times too many. These last two menus should be merged:

    8. 1. Register a credit card
    2. Top up your mobile
    3. Top up another mobile

Cheers