Search by POST method–A small research

This post is based on a small research I have done on Mozilla Firefox Search Plug-in.

The research started with the study of cookies stored by Mozilla Firefox and moved towards building the Mozilla Firefox Search Plug-in for my blog. My research is not finished yet but still I would like to share an opportunity I found testing these Search Plug-ins.

While exploring these search plug-ins I noted that every search plug-in is using GET method to send the search query to Search Engine. It seems fine to me as it is just a search so using POST method to send the request doesn’t make a sense to me, but then I thought other way – What would happen if POST method is used to send the request to server. I got curious about this and start to edit the properties of these plug-ins. I have tested multiple search plugins to see how corresponding search engines handles the request sent by POST method and found these three different behaviours:

Google: Google was first search plug-in I tested. When I sent search request to Google using POST Method, I got an error page like this:

It seems appropriate. Google doesn’t serve any search request being send by POST Method but then a question is raised - does a non technical user really understand what is POST method? For eg.: My wife doesn’t know this terminology and she will definitely call me for help if she get such error from the Google.

(See the Error Code 405. I have not seen this error earlier. So my research also helped me to find a new error message )

Yahoo: The next search engine was Yahoo. Initially I thought that Yahoo will give the same result as given by Google but it proved me wrong. To my surprise Yahoo has given the result for the search query I sent using POST method.

Bing: The third major search plugin which I tested was Bing – A Microsoft Product. I love my job because it surprises me and it surprises me daily. Till now I have tested two major search engines Google and Yahoo dealing with the request sent using POST method and both of them have given me different results. Once again I was guessing the result before testing. Based on my two previous results I was thinking that Bing should either display the error message or it should display the search result. I have not thought of any other result but surprisingly, Bing has given some unexpected result:

Instead of displaying search results or any error, it has opened Bing Search Engine.

I have tested for few other search plugins for different search engine but result are more of the same as these three. Now, question is which search engine has served the user’s request properly: Google, Yahoo or Bing. Think as a tester, Think as a developer and Think as an end user.

Post me your answers with the reason in Comments section, we can have a good discussion on it.

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.