4 ms·

It seems like they did not even test the new system. I participate in two of the most popular domainer forums and there are stories of people losing domains the

by rafaelm 12y ago

It seems like they did not even test the new system. I participate in two of the most popular domainer forums and there are stories of people losing domains they had in their accounts, double and triple charges to credit cards, whois privacy deactivated,etc,etc. Their website was down for around 2 days and there's lots of people that lost domains because they were unable to renew them. It's a huge mess. Some people had to block their credit cards with their bank because they were getting hammered with charges. I was charged for one domain that was not supposed to be renewed (I was transferring it out). Now I have to deal with their abysmal customer services. To add insult to injury, they posted a half-assed statement on their website and social media accounts and left it at that. Their previous interface was very simple, sometimes a bit awkward to use but it worked and had no fancy animations,transitions,etc. Unfortunately it seems that most registrars lack good UX designers. Namecheap's recent re-design is also a mess. They added some fancy sliding menus and animations on top of their old design and made it even more confusing. But at least their system works.

daenz 12y ago
> I was charged for one domain that was not supposed to be renewed (I was transferring it out). Now I have to deal with their abysmal customer services. You're not the only one. I was pissed to see my intentionally-expiring domains charged, and the ones I wanted to renew NOT charged(!). Didn't help that the ones I wanted to keep were literally expiring in days, and nobody at Moniker seemed to be responding to tickets. As soon as I find a good alternative, I'm out. This is unacceptable for a business.
derefr 12y ago
> Namecheap's recent re-design is also a mess. They added some fancy sliding menus and animations on top of their old design and made it even more confusing. But at least their system works. Eh, Namecheap didn't really do a redesign (of their service); once you hit the domain management pages it's the same old 1995-looking views embedded in their new layout. It's just the sales funnel pages that changed.
- pasbesoin 12y ago
  I returned to this thread to comment on Namecheap. I see there are now a few places I might reply. The Namecheap redesign originally struck me as "design for design's sake" and it continues to do so. A bit more than just the front/"funnel" pages, it also impacted some of the menus and the cart and checkout pages. With regard to the front pages, I found it no improvement. Some form of "Bootstrap-ification" or whatever that served primarily to hide things rather than to expose them -- both to me, a longstanding user, but also I suspect to a fair fraction of new users. Checkout also was initially more opaque, although that seems to have been improved a bit since then. (Among other things, the first time post-design, finding and renewing an associated "WhoisGuard" registration was a PITA game of hide-and-seek.) I found the redesign to be yet one more example of what I consider to be the current, mistaken over-influence of "Design" and "Designers". Taking "stuff that works" and "prettying it up" while making it: Harder to actually see; harder to actually use; more bug prone; less responsive (as opposed to "responsive"); etc. There are plenty of good redesigns. But there are plenty of "redesigns for redesigns' sake" that should be stopped before they are started. The other day, I heard someone apply the Hippocratic Oath to an element of software/systems design, and I found myself agreeing: "First, do no harm." In Namecheap's case, I can understand the design to update a distinctly "old school" appearance. But, as has been pointed out, the older design worked. Keeping things working, and clear, should have been a primary -- first -- requirement of the redesign. They didn't fail entirely in that regard, but they certainly annoyed. Also, the redesign did look more than a bit like someone "slapped" a Bootstrap theme or similar onto the site. Maybe it looks better particularly on phones and tablets than the old site. But I didn't/don't find it particularly attractive. If I'm going to devolve into discussing its "Design", I think they could have done a fair amount better. Anywho, the site is working, and on the rare occasion when I need customer support, they've always been very responsive via IM (integrated into the site). Setting Namecheap aside, I hope that "the Web" in general, or at least the parts I care about, can get past this apparent outsized influence of... "Design" (/Craig-Ferguson-dramatic-expression-mode). P.S. While I'm here, I'll just add: Darn it, Namecheap. "autocomplete off" your credit card security code field!!! You got the message about the credit card number field, but this change remains needed and outstanding (and has carried over through the design change).

by rafaelm 12y ago

daenz 12y ago

> I was charged for one domain that was not supposed to be renewed (I was transferring it out). Now I have to deal with their abysmal customer services. You're not the only one. I was pissed to see my intentionally-expiring domains charged, and the ones I wanted to renew NOT charged(!). Didn't help that the ones I wanted to keep were literally expiring in days, and nobody at Moniker seemed to be responding to tickets. As soon as I find a good alternative, I'm out. This is unacceptable for a business.

derefr 12y ago

> Namecheap's recent re-design is also a mess. They added some fancy sliding menus and animations on top of their old design and made it even more confusing. But at least their system works. Eh, Namecheap didn't really do a redesign (of their service); once you hit the domain management pages it's the same old 1995-looking views embedded in their new layout. It's just the sales funnel pages that changed.

pasbesoin 12y ago
I returned to this thread to comment on Namecheap. I see there are now a few places I might reply. The Namecheap redesign originally struck me as "design for design's sake" and it continues to do so. A bit more than just the front/"funnel" pages, it also impacted some of the menus and the cart and checkout pages. With regard to the front pages, I found it no improvement. Some form of "Bootstrap-ification" or whatever that served primarily to hide things rather than to expose them -- both to me, a longstanding user, but also I suspect to a fair fraction of new users. Checkout also was initially more opaque, although that seems to have been improved a bit since then. (Among other things, the first time post-design, finding and renewing an associated "WhoisGuard" registration was a PITA game of hide-and-seek.) I found the redesign to be yet one more example of what I consider to be the current, mistaken over-influence of "Design" and "Designers". Taking "stuff that works" and "prettying it up" while making it: Harder to actually see; harder to actually use; more bug prone; less responsive (as opposed to "responsive"); etc. There are plenty of good redesigns. But there are plenty of "redesigns for redesigns' sake" that should be stopped before they are started. The other day, I heard someone apply the Hippocratic Oath to an element of software/systems design, and I found myself agreeing: "First, do no harm." In Namecheap's case, I can understand the design to update a distinctly "old school" appearance. But, as has been pointed out, the older design worked. Keeping things working, and clear, should have been a primary -- first -- requirement of the redesign. They didn't fail entirely in that regard, but they certainly annoyed. Also, the redesign did look more than a bit like someone "slapped" a Bootstrap theme or similar onto the site. Maybe it looks better particularly on phones and tablets than the old site. But I didn't/don't find it particularly attractive. If I'm going to devolve into discussing its "Design", I think they could have done a fair amount better. Anywho, the site is working, and on the rare occasion when I need customer support, they've always been very responsive via IM (integrated into the site). Setting Namecheap aside, I hope that "the Web" in general, or at least the parts I care about, can get past this apparent outsized influence of... "Design" (/Craig-Ferguson-dramatic-expression-mode). P.S. While I'm here, I'll just add: Darn it, Namecheap. "autocomplete off" your credit card security code field!!! You got the message about the credit card number field, but this change remains needed and outstanding (and has carried over through the design change).