We Need Some New Concepts In User Interface Design - AKA -- Save Money By....
Periodically going thru your domain registration accounts and similiar such things.
The particular instance I'm complaining about here is the GoDaddy/WildWest Domains User interface. But they aren't alone.
I had to be on the phone and have the person on the other side of the phone tell me -- nearly in excruciating detail - where to find where he wanted me to go.
He wanted me to "start to buy" a domain name to get my domains-by-proxy account numbers. This was non-trivial. Unbelievable.
He told me to go to "My Account" -- there was a "My Account" tab at the top -- and ALSO one on the left -- that did DIFFERENT THINGS!
He would tell me to look for something on the top of a screen -- and there would be 8 -- count 'em -- EIGHT ROWS of links to choose from.
BTW -- I got involved in this process because somehow some "business registrations" got added to 3 of my domains. Never mind that 2 of them have absolutely nothing in the way of a website (whether they are pointing to a hosting company, not sure.)
If you have domains with GoDaddy -- it may help you to do some periodic house-cleaning, to make sure you aren't charged for a bunch of garbage you don't want or no longer need.
While the first person I talked to told me that I can find all the things they charge me for by looking under "My Renewals And Upgrades" -- this is WRONG.
I found (I thought, I don't even see it now...Since "My Renewals And Upgrades" WAS at the TOP of the lefthand list and now is at the bottom, it wouldn't surprise me, LOL.) one that said "email" -- but rather than showing me my email accounts (oh wait ... they must have gone away because I cancelled them all) -- it took me to an email login.
When I found another place for emails, then it only showed me how to keep them (in fact, I'm not sure what the screen did, because that was the default behavior.) Finally, after asking the man at GD where I go to CANCEL the email accounts, he said "at the top" (which row, again ?).
While there is a link for "domains by proxy" -- it, like the email link, took me to a login for my domains by proxy email. (this actually makes more sense, but still not helpful if I'm trying to find out what domains are under "domains by proxy." (For that, you need to go to your domains.)
So, the nice man (and they DO have nice technical support people, in my experience. Some of the best in the industry. After I spent a couple of minutes at the end of the call dumping on their interface, the agent I talked to was not at all defensive, was still kind and polite -- as was I, I just needed to vent.)...
So the nice man, even though I had to "pretend" to buy a domain name so that we could select "private registration" (and most of these links actually showed just tooltips; there was, it turns out, no one place to select JUST private registration now ... there's standard, deluxe and something else -- where deluxe is business registration with domains-by-proxy combined. You have to click the ADD button to actually make something happen, instead of all the OTHER links that look like they should take you somewhere, but just pop up a tooltips, as I said. -- So, we finally got to where he could get the numbers of my domains-by-proxy account (and combine them, good idea), and send me an email where I can (finally) reset the password to my domains-by-proxy account.
What a maddening experience.
Why they have regular links on things that only bring up tooltips -- I'll never know. I would think it would behoove them to take you to links that actually allow you to purchase something.
ANYWAY -- I'm sure there are other companies that subscribe to the Bob Parson's school of User Interface -- so, periodically, you may want to take a look. (Did anyone notice that Bob put in a random fee where the ICANN fee USED TO BE, and snuck the ICANN fee in fine print? They did that one a while back (and Parsons wasn't the only one to do it -- credit card companies and others did similiar sorts of things. If you always expected a some govt or regulatory fee and for some reason it went away -- the credit card companies just replaced it with their own fee. Isn't that special?
Confuse 'em enuf so they can't figure out what to cancel or how to cancel it so they wear you down so you just forget it.
It pays to read your bills, and periodically "clean out" your registration and hosting accounts. Who knows what miscellaneous garbage that you aren't using that you are paying for.
/rant off -- and, I hope some useful information for anyone who uses GD. Maybe I should create a GD survival guide. I told the agent that using Unix is easier than the GD UI.
(But then, I LOVE Unix. I'm a command-line junkie.)
Live JoyFully!
Judy
The particular instance I'm complaining about here is the GoDaddy/WildWest Domains User interface. But they aren't alone.
I had to be on the phone and have the person on the other side of the phone tell me -- nearly in excruciating detail - where to find where he wanted me to go.
He wanted me to "start to buy" a domain name to get my domains-by-proxy account numbers. This was non-trivial. Unbelievable.
He told me to go to "My Account" -- there was a "My Account" tab at the top -- and ALSO one on the left -- that did DIFFERENT THINGS!
He would tell me to look for something on the top of a screen -- and there would be 8 -- count 'em -- EIGHT ROWS of links to choose from.
BTW -- I got involved in this process because somehow some "business registrations" got added to 3 of my domains. Never mind that 2 of them have absolutely nothing in the way of a website (whether they are pointing to a hosting company, not sure.)
If you have domains with GoDaddy -- it may help you to do some periodic house-cleaning, to make sure you aren't charged for a bunch of garbage you don't want or no longer need.
While the first person I talked to told me that I can find all the things they charge me for by looking under "My Renewals And Upgrades" -- this is WRONG.
I found (I thought, I don't even see it now...Since "My Renewals And Upgrades" WAS at the TOP of the lefthand list and now is at the bottom, it wouldn't surprise me, LOL.) one that said "email" -- but rather than showing me my email accounts (oh wait ... they must have gone away because I cancelled them all) -- it took me to an email login.
When I found another place for emails, then it only showed me how to keep them (in fact, I'm not sure what the screen did, because that was the default behavior.) Finally, after asking the man at GD where I go to CANCEL the email accounts, he said "at the top" (which row, again ?).
While there is a link for "domains by proxy" -- it, like the email link, took me to a login for my domains by proxy email. (this actually makes more sense, but still not helpful if I'm trying to find out what domains are under "domains by proxy." (For that, you need to go to your domains.)
So, the nice man (and they DO have nice technical support people, in my experience. Some of the best in the industry. After I spent a couple of minutes at the end of the call dumping on their interface, the agent I talked to was not at all defensive, was still kind and polite -- as was I, I just needed to vent.)...
So the nice man, even though I had to "pretend" to buy a domain name so that we could select "private registration" (and most of these links actually showed just tooltips; there was, it turns out, no one place to select JUST private registration now ... there's standard, deluxe and something else -- where deluxe is business registration with domains-by-proxy combined. You have to click the ADD button to actually make something happen, instead of all the OTHER links that look like they should take you somewhere, but just pop up a tooltips, as I said. -- So, we finally got to where he could get the numbers of my domains-by-proxy account (and combine them, good idea), and send me an email where I can (finally) reset the password to my domains-by-proxy account.
What a maddening experience.
Why they have regular links on things that only bring up tooltips -- I'll never know. I would think it would behoove them to take you to links that actually allow you to purchase something.
ANYWAY -- I'm sure there are other companies that subscribe to the Bob Parson's school of User Interface -- so, periodically, you may want to take a look. (Did anyone notice that Bob put in a random fee where the ICANN fee USED TO BE, and snuck the ICANN fee in fine print? They did that one a while back (and Parsons wasn't the only one to do it -- credit card companies and others did similiar sorts of things. If you always expected a some govt or regulatory fee and for some reason it went away -- the credit card companies just replaced it with their own fee. Isn't that special?
Confuse 'em enuf so they can't figure out what to cancel or how to cancel it so they wear you down so you just forget it.
It pays to read your bills, and periodically "clean out" your registration and hosting accounts. Who knows what miscellaneous garbage that you aren't using that you are paying for.
/rant off -- and, I hope some useful information for anyone who uses GD. Maybe I should create a GD survival guide. I told the agent that using Unix is easier than the GD UI.
(But then, I LOVE Unix. I'm a command-line junkie.)Live JoyFully!
Judy