Bad move, ClickThinking

brad — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 13:30:40 +0200

I was excited this morning when I read on Green Cars about Optimal energy's re-designed website. They recently launched their electric car the 'Joule'. Except when I clicked through to the optimal energy site it looked awfully familiar. Apparently this didn't escape Damien Du Toit (the owner of the coda identity). Apparently the background image is a direct copy paste probably even ends up as the same hash.

It is completely despicable, unethical, immoral. I am sure optimal energy are unaware of what ClickThinking did, but I hope they get wind of it.

I suppose it should be unsurprising that ClickThinking also uses javascript to add onclick events to their 'navbar' made of div's, instead of, I dunno, anchors? Is HTML still HTML if you don't actually make use of anchors?

UPDATE: Based on the comments below and re-reading the above paragraph, I realise it is not clear that when I rip into the JS menu I am talking about the JS menu on ClickThinking, not the menu on Optimal Energy site

UPDATE: Changed the title of the post to be less venomous. Was "Do not use the services of ClickThinking".

Dear Standard Bank, Internet banking division

brad — Wed, 07 May 2008 10:50:23 +0200

Hi,

The improvements to internet banking have some bugs, it seems.

I have had the experience twice now during "once off payments" that I get an error of "Internet banking is currently unavailable" when I go through with a transaction. It seems to be related to sending payment confirmations. It is bad behaviour because the transaction goes through, but the user (me) does not get a valid indication the payment has succeeded until a notification (sms, or email) comes through, or manually checks if there is a mention on the account transacted from/to.

I would also like to say that some of the "improvements" are actually a degradation, in terms of usability. The screen is more cluttered with graphics and text, and on my screen (which is running at 1280x800) has information pushed "below the fold". I would suggest that whoever is in charge of usability and new features looks into buying a copy of "Defensive Web Design" (http://www.amazon.com/Defensive-Design-Web-improve-messages/dp/073571410...), and other texts discussing usability on the web. While not absolutely correct, the EyeTRAC studies are a good reference point.

I (as a web developer) find it depressing that a service I am paying for has degraded usability, when the changes were supposedly improvements. It is not a wholely poor experience (there are some improvements, but my general experience is that the interface has become more confusing, not less confusing)

I am posting this email on my blog, and you are welcome to respond publicly (in the form of a comment), or as an email response.

--
Brad Whittington

web development

Bad move, ClickThinking

Dear Standard Bank, Internet banking division