I got a new phone with my xmas bounty (Thanks Mum & Dad!) and it’s great. A Samsung Google Nexus S it’s an android dream with a curved screen and buckets of charisma (yes OK it’s a phone). The device itself is thus far a complete success – I love it. And it was half price in carphone whorehouse so a real bargain to boot.
But … (yes, of course there’s a but) …
The first thing you do with an Android device is to link it to your Google account. About half a day later I received an email inviting me to register my new phone with Samsung, including a handy link to the registration page. Following this link took me to a page which did nothing (header, massive link-heavy footer, nothing inbetween). Hidden away (in the extensive footer full of links), I found a Register your product link which asked for my email and my zip code. Nothing else. They’ve got a nice bit of JavaScript validating their form, and perhaps unsurprisingly, an Aberystwyth postcode wasn’t accepted as a ZIP code.
Then I thought “Maybe I’m on the US site?” so I navigated to Samsung UK, found the Product Registration link (note different wording – and on the UK site, at the top right rather than the bottom left). I started to fill it in, but fall at the first hurdle. They’ve got a nice bit of JavaScript validating their form, and it doesn’t like my email hmd@hannahdee.eu. So I tried a different email, and it likes .co.uk so I filled in the other 13 compulsory form fields on the page. Only to find that on submission, it craps out due to a server error.
Looks like the phone’s going unregistered then…
The web design tips I take from this are:
- If you’re sending out a link, send out the right link.
- If you’ve got a location-based service, estimate the user’s location, and provide a “change location” link in case it’s wrong.
- Don’t use JavaScript form validation for emails unless you really know what you’re doing.
- Don’t make form elements compulsory unless they really have to be compulsory.
- Don’t have server errors :-)