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Small story: I was investigating wufoo.com one day, and was mightily impressed - so impressed that I sent them an email nitpicking some extremely minor issues
by murrayh 18y ago
Small story:
I was investigating wufoo.com one day, and was mightily impressed - so impressed that I sent them an email nitpicking some extremely minor issues (the first and only email of its kind that I've sent).
The grammar issue I raised was fixed almost immediately, and fixed by completely replacing the problem word and all of its various forms.
The searchbox alignment was changed perhaps a week or two later, probably with an unreasonable effort to benefit ratio (good old HTML/CSS issues).
Their response showed me that the wufoo guys care, and that they know how to debug problems instead of just superficially fixing symptoms.
That search bar still has some minor flaws though. I get a hand pointer over the search icon, but clicking it does not illicit a response. And I also get a hand pointer over the right corner of the search bar, which is a little weird (clicking there also does nothing).
I don't know exactly what it is, but there is something about that website that resonates with me (I actually have never used the service), and it drives me to pipe up with crap like this, which is not typical of me.
- aaronsw 18y agoDid they ever respond to your email? When I sent them nitpicks their reply was all snippy about it.
- apgwoz 18y agoJust a hunch, but they probably ignored it because of who it was sent from. I'm kidding, seriously.
- alaskamiller 18y agoI chuckled.
- unfoldedorigami 18y agoHey Aaron, for that, I'm going to have to take the blame and offer my apologies. (I think I apologized before, but here it is again). Your nitpicks were actually really great feedback and addressed the kind of design details that make all the difference between what's good enough and what's great in an interface. Unfortunately, they were 1) covering stuff that was near the bottom of our priority stack because we were just trying to launch at that point 2) I was still an asshole during that period and hadn't fully learned the value of users yet: http://particletree.com/notebook/reflections-of-an-interface-designer/ http://particletree.com/notebook/reflections-of-an-interface... I offer no excuses. Thanks again for taking the time to help us then and I'm sorry that I left a bad impression for my reactions.
- dcurtis 18y agoYou are awesome. Seriously. Users are fucking awesome, but people like you, people who understand users and are completely transparent about their process are even more awesome. Thank you for the inspiration.
- murrayh 18y agoYep, the response was good natured and curt. I certainly felt... uh... upset? at first, but that quickly faded when I realised the message was quite practical.
- unfoldedorigami 18y agoHmm...well that should be fixed. Those hover areas are leftover properties we used in the Entry Manager and since we just reused a good number of the XHTML/CSS when we redid the documentation, we forgot that the extra effects and activated areas weren't needed there. Thanks again for the detailed attention!