idiotic ui choices

Imagine if you will a website, belonging to a bank. As part of their new security policy they give you a series of questions for which you are supposed to provide the answer. One of these questions asks for a name of a particular family member.

Which I enter.

And the website tells me my answer must be 4 characters long. But the name isn't. So the right answer to the question violates the input requirements. What am I supposed to do? Make up something longer (I was thinking "biteme" might be a good choice)? Then I won't be able to remember it.

Bad user interfaces (particularly on the web) make me want to get a job as a fishing guide or something.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Another good one I ran across... What year did you graduate highschool?
>All input must be greated then five (5) characters.
Sheryl said…
At a company I used to work for, we had decided to use an application built by an acquisition. At a demo, there was a screen that had a button... it's caption was "Next/Prev". Huh? Which one is it????
Devin Ben-Hur said…
Have you ever encountered a financial institution web site whose interface wasn't absolutely awful?
Charlie Parker said…
My cellphone account has a five digit PIN. It gets very confusing when you call their automated account system and are told to "Please enter your four digit PIN."
Anonymous said…
Try to place and order with an American mail order company or register for some American site where you have to enter your address; in nine cases out of ten you have to supply which state you live in - even if you have selected another country then the U.S. from the dropdown list. In how many countries are there a state called Arizona? Where do you think the package will end up if you say you live in Arizona, {some country other then the U.S.}?

So far they have all ended up at the right place, as the postman usually is brighter then the developers.