Path: csiph.com!news.swapon.de!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: polygonum Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: Let's compile a list of ways to annoy the user. Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2016 18:38:07 +0000 Organization: me Lines: 42 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: rmoudndgers@vrod.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-15; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: individual.net GVRLSgTpy9rbjGgxF3BqHQ+InTJKZQo53xy2uHXjrMOrA2aIU= Cancel-Lock: sha1:HvPUICWRmGkfvPMDvaS2eYBmEQs= User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/38.5.1 In-Reply-To: Xref: csiph.com comp.misc:10089 On 22/01/2016 12:12, Paul Sture wrote: > On 2016-01-14, Sylvia Else wrote: >> We should probably limit it to things people have actually seen. > > When looking for opening times for a retail outlet, insist that I don't > know where it is, so that I have to select it from a map. > > Look, I know exactly where that outlet is, I just want to know what > the opening times are. I don't need to know where the nearest car > park or bus/railway station is, nor do I need directions. > > My first encounter with this lunacy was looking up the opening times for > a couple of branches of a supermarket chain, housed in the shopping > complex around my local train station, all of 5 minutes walk from home. > > Of course the map presented was at a default resolution where both > outlets appeared as a single blob on the map, necessitating zooming > to get either one. > > I was so pissed off with this experience that I put the opening times of > my local supermarkets and post offices on a local website I was managing > at the time. Interestingly, the web server logs showed that I was not > the only one who wanted to know the *closing* times of the small local > post office (think catching the last post or paying bills by a certain > date). > > Half a dozen years on, and I see that the Post Office has been at work > "improving" its web site. Just before Christmas I wanted to know what > times my local PO was open during the holidays. The tour I ended up > doing of their site navigation in an effort to get to that information > meant that it would have been just as fast to drive there, take a photo > of the notice on the front door, and drive back. > > And I though this internet thing was supposed to make our lives easier > in obtaining basic information... :-( > Recognition of this issue in general comes with Google's display of a panel including opening times on quite a number of searches that end up finding commercial premises. (Though not for our local post office.) -- Rod