Carepages.com sucks ass
Apr. 24th, 2008 01:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
progA colleague from my past had a bike accident yesterday and went to hospital. He got roughed up real bad and needed surgery, so that happened today, and he's now improving rapidly. I know this through frequent updates that his wife's been making to a carepages.com page.
And I appreciate this, even though I have discovered that Carepages is to emailed or blogged health updates as Evite is to emailed invitations. Except even worse than that, times ten. First, you have to register before you can even see your friend's page, and much is the grumbling wtf-ery. Once you do this, you start to receive emailed notifications whenever the person's page gets updated, but the email contains no details about the update. When you click the link read the update you have to log in again, because there's no option to keep a session cookie with the website!
When a significant percentage of your users are worried-sick friends and family who hold their breath with dread every time there's news, what you don't do is announce this news with a content-free email and a link that makes them fumble around for their password when they're too stressed out to type straight, every goddamn time. That is fucking wrong.
It's kind of tacky to get mad about bad UI in this situation, but I'm relieved that he's gonna be OK, and so I think I have the right to vent that this shit just crosses the line. I just emailed my friend to wish him the best. Oh, RFC 821: you are much maligned, but you're there when we just need simplicity.
And I appreciate this, even though I have discovered that Carepages is to emailed or blogged health updates as Evite is to emailed invitations. Except even worse than that, times ten. First, you have to register before you can even see your friend's page, and much is the grumbling wtf-ery. Once you do this, you start to receive emailed notifications whenever the person's page gets updated, but the email contains no details about the update. When you click the link read the update you have to log in again, because there's no option to keep a session cookie with the website!
When a significant percentage of your users are worried-sick friends and family who hold their breath with dread every time there's news, what you don't do is announce this news with a content-free email and a link that makes them fumble around for their password when they're too stressed out to type straight, every goddamn time. That is fucking wrong.
It's kind of tacky to get mad about bad UI in this situation, but I'm relieved that he's gonna be OK, and so I think I have the right to vent that this shit just crosses the line. I just emailed my friend to wish him the best. Oh, RFC 821: you are much maligned, but you're there when we just need simplicity.
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no subject
Date: 2008-04-24 05:25 am (UTC)i get so much bacn from kodak. I want to kill them. why couldn't so-and-so use flickr? Sheesh! Or facebook?
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Date: 2008-04-24 01:18 pm (UTC)ob-relevance: it isn't tacky at all to bitch about bad UI at a time like this. It's time's like this that need good UI most of all.
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Date: 2008-04-24 06:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-24 05:08 pm (UTC)