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Lessons in incompetence
4 points by RiderOfGiraffes 403 days ago | comments
I can't remember why now, but I recently tried to register for a service. I remember thinking it was really quite good. Well thought out, useful, and worth the risk that I'd end up getting spam, as I had with eMusic.

But when I tried to register, the box for my email address was clearly limited to 30 characters, and my email address has 31 characters.

So I thought I'd be helpful and send some feedback so they could improve their site, and I could use it:

    The original message was received at Thu,
    18 Jun 2009 08:43:09 -0400 from
    localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]

   ----- The following addresses had
         permanent fatal errors -----
    <feedback@myhappyplanet.com>
    (reason: 550-5.1.1 The email account
    that you tried to reach does not exist.
    ...
Way to go guys. prevent people from registering, and then prevent them from giving feedback. Good one. Life's too short to investigate their problems, I've tried to help, now I'm moving on.

How often have you tested your feedback mechanisms from external addresses?



1 point by scscsc 403 days ago | link

I think most people would not bother to give feedback when something goes wrong. I know that I certainly do not. I have tried in the past and you always run into some sort of problem with the feedback mechanism or they simply do not care about your problem.

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2 points by RiderOfGiraffes 403 days ago | link

Agreed - the clear lack of effort to allow or respond to feedback has trained people not to provide it. My alpha testers seem to find it hard to notice the huge "FEEDBACK" link on my site, and after analysing their trajectory through the site, they aren't then telling me anything.

There are lessons to learn here - if you want feedback, you have to pull it. And if someone is willing to give you feedback, make it effortless for them.

And test, test, test, test.

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1 point by JamesLucas 400 days ago | link

This is surprisingly common - http://www.eph.co.uk/resources/email-address-length-faq/#ema...

Some developers think even 20 characters is enough (the mean average email address length is around 22 characters)

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