I was trying to view a tamil magazine website. The scrawny bouncers at the door of Sloppy Coders Paradise stop me with a message: "Use Internet Explorer only please". Huh, my firefox fingers bristle at the affront. Still I am not unduely surprised. I was aware the website was probably the work of a web development company with moderate to sloppy software skills. Oh well. Alright, perhaps the website will have some redeeming quality in its content. I use IE and enter. The moment I step in, the website asks me to install a particular tamil font. Well, I pause a moment to consider if I should abandon my ill-fated adventure and retreat. Too far in already. I forge ahead with blind faith and hope. I install the rotten font and reload the page. Hey, those squiggles I saw is the left menu are not squiggles! Its Tamil! There, that link beckons me, it looks like the article I want to read. I click on the link. What?! You evil bastards, you silly idiots! I am redirected to a registration page instead of the article. The website offers to sell me things I don't want in exchange for my soul and money. I am not Faust and you are not the Devil. So, bugger off. I mutter expletives in disgust, close IE, switch to Firefox and start this blog post.
Many tamil magazines (and other Indian language magazines) go online to reach the dollars, euros and pounds of Indians living abroad. Unless they get their act together, they'll dislodge even the most ardent readers, let alone infrequent visitors like me. I tried telling myself that the business models and software skills are still developing in this part of the world. But, it matters very little whether you are a startup in Silicon Valley with the smartest coders on the planet or a local web company without any pedigree. Mediocrity sucks regardless of who you are. Excellence is not just a word, you know, it translates into experiences: great experiences if present, scars for life if not.
- Log in to post comments
Don't blame the coders, blame the clients - I doubt they do their own development. The idea that all web usability flaws are down to lazy coding is false - they're mostly down to a combination of stupid, ill-conceived requirements and tight budgets. At the end of the day, if the client insists on forced registration, that's their decision. If they insist on "features" which can't be implemented cross-browser for the agreed budget, that is also their decision. Many clients make truly lousy decisions.