6 ms·

Certainly, most websites have no obligation to serve me as a customer, but if they tell me that my name is "invalid", they shouldn't be surprised if I take my c

Certainly, most websites have no obligation to serve me as a customer, but if they tell me that my name is "invalid", they shouldn't be surprised if I take my custom to a competitor who isn't quite so rude. But you seem to be missing the fact that "Gijs in 't Veld" is perfectly valid Ascii, as would be names like "O'Leary" or "O'Reilly" that are perhaps more common in the English-speaking world.

candu 10y ago
And some websites, such as government portals to various departments and services, do have implicit (and often even explicit) obligations to serve everyone. I wonder how well GP would take it if, say, the IRS webpay or DMV sites (or their equivalent wherever GP happens to live) balked at their name.
- atomwaffel 10y ago
  Yes, government services was what I thought of when I wrote "most websites". Then again, I feel like those tend to be the worst user experience offenders (which is what this comes down to). It took me several attempts to mangle my home address into something the US visa application form would accept and I've seen ö turned into Ã¶ on my own country's official websites so many times that I can remember the mojibake. I wonder why that is. I guess part of the reason is that government doesn't need to invest heavily in UX because there is no threat of people going elsewhere – when you need a passport, you need a passport, and you're not going to order one from Amazon. In fact, there's probably a disincentive for government to continuously improve their UX precisely because any changes to a system that's in place and working well enough only cost them money. Are there any counterexamples of government websites that offer good user experience?
  - bzbarsky 10y ago
    The tax e-filing system in Massachusetts is a government website that offers a quite good user experience. It could be a bit better (e.g. it could save your general W-2 info from year to year on the assumption that you probably didn't change employers), but it's fairly nice in most ways; the W-2 thing is the only problem I've run into with it, and it has a fairly clear UI. Especially given the complexity of the actual paper MA tax forms. On the other hand, the MA website where you pay things like unemployment insurance for your employees is terrible, complete with being offline outside of normal business hours (because afaict they take it offline while they do batch imports from physical media that companies send them). Note that this is not as much of a "voter-facing" website, of course. ;)
- bzbarsky 10y ago
  The DMV in Massachusetts can't handle a space in a last name. They convert it to a dash instead. As a result, I know several people who have different names on their passport and their driver's license, simply because the computer system at the DMV is broken.

candu 10y ago

And some websites, such as government portals to various departments and services, do have implicit (and often even explicit) obligations to serve everyone. I wonder how well GP would take it if, say, the IRS webpay or DMV sites (or their equivalent wherever GP happens to live) balked at their name.

atomwaffel 10y ago
Yes, government services was what I thought of when I wrote "most websites". Then again, I feel like those tend to be the worst user experience offenders (which is what this comes down to). It took me several attempts to mangle my home address into something the US visa application form would accept and I've seen ö turned into Ã¶ on my own country's official websites so many times that I can remember the mojibake. I wonder why that is. I guess part of the reason is that government doesn't need to invest heavily in UX because there is no threat of people going elsewhere – when you need a passport, you need a passport, and you're not going to order one from Amazon. In fact, there's probably a disincentive for government to continuously improve their UX precisely because any changes to a system that's in place and working well enough only cost them money. Are there any counterexamples of government websites that offer good user experience?
- bzbarsky 10y ago
  The tax e-filing system in Massachusetts is a government website that offers a quite good user experience. It could be a bit better (e.g. it could save your general W-2 info from year to year on the assumption that you probably didn't change employers), but it's fairly nice in most ways; the W-2 thing is the only problem I've run into with it, and it has a fairly clear UI. Especially given the complexity of the actual paper MA tax forms. On the other hand, the MA website where you pay things like unemployment insurance for your employees is terrible, complete with being offline outside of normal business hours (because afaict they take it offline while they do batch imports from physical media that companies send them). Note that this is not as much of a "voter-facing" website, of course. ;)
bzbarsky 10y ago
The DMV in Massachusetts can't handle a space in a last name. They convert it to a dash instead. As a result, I know several people who have different names on their passport and their driver's license, simply because the computer system at the DMV is broken.