On a major financial institution website I was asked to complete a contact form. This organization has millions of existing customers. This is not a startup, yet the quality of work is something a junior developer would fail at an interview if they provided the answer.
The form wanted an address and a phone number.
For the address, the form correctly prompted for a country, however the validation of the postal code did not change. It was stuck in US mode, seeking a Postal Code of 5 digits. The irony here is most Americans may ask, “What is a Postal Code, you mean Zip Code?” — however that is a conversation for another time.
The contact phone number offered an International Number option, but forced you into the US mode of entering a 10 digit number, re-formatted into the US format.
This is a solved problem. It is a 101 mistake, a basic user test that did not pass muster. How is it possible for this to actually occur when technology is designed to help improve how we develop software?
With an organization at such a large size:
- Do they have a human UI/UX testing team? (Likely yes)
- Do they have any software testing framework that runs automated tests? (Highly likely yes)
- Have they leveraged an AI model to write tests, and run tests in any part of the organization? (Highly likely yes)
We are so caught up in all the flashy new things AI can do, that somewhere for this organization it was lost that AI is a basic tool in engineering. Start with the everyday basics that can improve the experience of customers.
Thankfully today, the “Could you give me a few minutes to provide feedback for our site” annoying popup — the one you discard a dozen times a day — proved to be valuable, and I could provide a 1 out of 5 star rating and explain how the most basic of contact forms was unusable.
