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Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Navigating the Quirks: A Light-Hearted Look at Gmail's User Experience Blunders

I would like to dedicate this post to Santhosh Tuppad. It was Santhosh's post and the comments on the post which gave me idea to write this post. The post is going to heart break some Google fans but I think now they should accept that Google is also fallible.

Mission: To display the stupid mistakes to Google devotees in Gmail Registration form.
Time: 0.5 Hrs

How should I change the language here?
Scenario: I am a common user and I don’t have internet access at home so I go to cyber café to use the internet services. On such a public computer, I opened the GMail and found the following screen:



I don’t know Hindi so I am unable to read the content on the screen. How could I change the language to English?

Perhaps, Google forgot to provide the Change Language dropdown here.

GMail Help – Most Stupid Mistake
Scenario: I am using the GMail in Hindi and clicked on ‘Can’t access your account?’ link (Written in Hindi Translation) and redirected to following page:

 Somebody must tell Google that upper right side should be towards upper side of the page and not at bottom of the page.

Now I have doubt on Google’s direction sense. How could I believe on Google Earth now?

Where is the play captcha image?
I am wondering where the play captcha image for this captcha is.

 Play Captcha image: The wheelchair icon with captcha, on clicking you'll be presented with an interesting voice version of the captcha. This is generally used by physically disabled people.

Where is the Refresh button with Captcha image?
Scenario: I am unable to understand the letters in the captcha image. What should I do here?

Should I submit the incorrect word and try again for the new captcha, there is not guarantee that letters in new captcha will be readable

Or Should I refresh the page which will cause the lost of information that I already filled up.

Sorry, we are unable to present username suggestions at this time.

See the screenshot below:


There could be various reasons for this message:
1. GMail server might be busy with any female server :D
2. Its lunch time. :D
3. GMail server may be using the loo :D

Actually, GMail server suggests username on the basis of First name and Last Name entered by user and username can be in English Language only. Here, I have entered Hindi letters and he couldn’t process the request so instead of displaying its inability to suggest username, it has given this error message.

Incorrect Hindi Writing
Neither I had time to search them all nor do I have any spellchecker for Hindi Language so I have mentioned only one mistake in the screenshot. There might be more mistakes in Hindi Spellings.

 The word should be written as ऊपर and not उपर


Displaying Error message without wrong Input

When I clicked on Check availability button, it displayed me a captcha with a field to enter the characters in the captcha and an error message which says
The characters you entered didn't match the word verification. Please try again.

When I didn't enter any word then why they are saying that I have entered incorrect word. This message should appear if I enter the incorrect characters.


Relevant Information is not available on Time

I have filled up the password with the characters which are not allowed by GMail. It displayed me the following error after submitting the form:

The following characters are allowed in your password: a-z, A-Z, 0-9, and common punctuation characters.

If password characters were not valid then why didn’t it displayed the error when I tabbed from the choose password field to next field i.e. re-enter password.

If it has displayed the error at right time I could save a lot of time.

I hope GMail server is not allergic to the user name which I have selected.

In the screenshot, see the distance between the field and error message. It seems that GMail server is allergic to the selected username and that’s why the error message going far away every time I click check availability button.



I am not sure but the reason might be: Whenever user clicks on ‘Check Availability’ button, it generates same error message. To avoid the duplication of error messages, the developer had hid the repeating error message.

The funny thing is when these kind of stupid mistakes are mentioned by any passionate tester who is doing it without any greed, few people got offended. According to them “No one will die and no two countries will go to war.” Believe me if we tester start to keep this point in mind, we don’t need UI / Look and feel testing then.

It took just 30 minutes to find the above issues and I am sure if any tester devotes his some time he can find more issues in Google products.

Trust the Google but with open eyes.

13 comments:

Santhosh Tuppad said...

@Mohit,
Fantastic my friend. Loved it. Amazing - Rocking - Cool. Thanks for dedicating this post to me. People need to understand instead of just arguing which doesn't make sense. They need to change their attitude which will help them in their life which is good for them. But, they do not want to listen to good things.

Good work my friend *smiles*.

Thanks,
Santhosh Shivanand Tuppad

Santhosh Tuppad said...

@Mohit,
Couldn't stop myself from writing one more comment.

I went through the screenshots and I must say "Well done". I loved the way that you have talked about the issues.

*Cheers to you my friend :)*

Thanks,
Santhosh Shivanand Tuppad

Mohit said...

@Santhosh

Thanks for loving it :) It was an effort to show that I support you. Just keep up your good work

Krian said...

Somebody must tell Google that upper right side should be towards upper side of the page and not at bottom of the page.

Yeah ... some developer who is as good as all of us ... who probably got confused with upper side and lower side ... like we get confused with except and accept isnt it?

Santhosh Tuppad said...

@Mohit,
Thanks for the support and encouragement my friend *smiles*.

Thanks,
Santhosh Shivanand Tuppad

Mohit said...

@Kiran

I am agree, everybody can do mistakes. But you are comparing two different things :)

I know the difference between Except and Accept, it was a typo error and I accept it (Look I have written the write word here) while Google is a universal brand and this kind of stupid mistakes isn't acceptable from it. But still some people comes to defend the mistakes if pointed out, like you are defending the developer in your comment.

(By the way, did you check the spellings of your name? It is Kiran, right)

@Santhosh
Anytime my friend :)

Santhosh Tuppad said...

@Mohit,
I agree with your point of Google being universal brand. Let's say when the same bug is in some exampleforum.com and Google.com. People do not hype about exampleforum.com having that bug but if they encounter same bug in GOOOOOOOOGLEEEE then it spreads because Google is a universal brand and even a small bug might affect its credibility.

Even every small product should think of not having small bugs :)

Thanks,
Santhosh Shivanand Tuppad

Mohit said...

sorry, in my above message i typed 'write' instead of 'right' :)

Sharath Byregowda said...

Excellent report Mohit. I loved your bug description the most, hilarious and wicked ;)

Regards
Sharath

Mohit said...

:) Thanks Sharath

Amit said...

Mohit,

Simply Superb !...., Hats off for such interesting bugs.

Hope to see more from you

Amit

Amit said...

And yes, I shared it on my FB profile without your permission Sorry ...

Mohit said...

@Amit

Thanks..... What should I say, I am honored :)