Is anything more aggravating than an indecipherable captcha?

February 7, 2007 in usability,venting with 5 Comments

Captcha

Of course there is… but seriously… how hard do you want to make it for me to engage with your service and give you my money?

Very silly.

5 Responses to “Is anything more aggravating than an indecipherable captcha?”

Nate Westheimer February 7, 2007 at 6:18 pm #

Hi. It’s Nate… remember me? Anyway, I finally got that site up and running (I emailed you about advice for design work), and saw your “Vent” about CAPTCHA, so I made a vent for you to join to demonstrate the site for you.
Check it on on VentBox
Leith @ Birth of a Startup February 7, 2007 at 11:43 pm #

Totally agree! Why make it complex?? My other pet hate is complex email verifications, and even worse, its firms that require you to wait until they deposit two small amounts into your bank account so you can confirm them when you get your statement… I understand the need for it, but it frustrates me nonetheless! Great blog, by the way, I’m an avid reader!
Nate Westheimer February 8, 2007 at 12:15 am #

I should mention that there other “CAPTCHA” options. We chose to use word problems for our human test… I think more people should go that route, that way the blind can still use sites and only people who can’t solve basic human logic tests are kept out!
(Seriously, one of our questions is “How many letters are in the word word?”
Alex February 8, 2007 at 7:30 am #

I use computers and the web all the time, it’s my job, I’m a web content manager. But how many times have I been guessing the code that’s written in these image boxes? It’s amazing. This gets worse for occasional web users… And why do they need to make them so difficult to read anyway?
leisa.reichelt February 16, 2007 at 10:52 am #

LOL @ Leith. Having fun with PayPal are you? :)

@ Nate & Alex – I agree. I think that simple questions that require an answer are more friendly than trying to decipher captcha letters. I think this is the approach I’ll be encouraging in the future.

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