Big business, bad website
I bank with Natwest who have always annoyed me by only supporting "IE and Firefox" for several years. The other day my house-mate, who also uses Opera, was on his banks online system and using it perfectly well... Finally some ammunition! So I found the "Minimum requirements" page, and e-mailed to them:
Me wrote:
Quoting from: https://www.nwolb.com/default.aspx?refererident=A7995032C8C9119DEF8BAEA608F6B4B90B7C336F&noscr=false&CookieCheck=1"For technical reasons the service does not currently support the Opera browser. We are working with the publisher to address this."
I'd just like to point out that Barclays Banks website does work with the Opera browser. Perhaps, you should work on supporting standards instead of browsers?
The: "For technical reasons the service does not currently support the Opera browser. We are working with the publisher to address this." line is from their minimum requirements page. I also tried validating their site (http://www.natwest.com) and it failed with 18 errors.
Barclays are NatWest banks rivals, and I know it's petty. But they make enough profit to be developing web sites properly and overcoming so-callled "technical difficulties" in less time than the two years I've been waiting! Not only that, but these businesses should know how badly: "Your browser isn't supported", messages annoy their users. Damn, I'm considering taking my business to Barclays now!
Anyone else had problems with big business, bad website?
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DaveyBoy posted this at 00:34 — 17th March 2006.
They have: 453 posts
Joined: Feb 2003
To be fair, i find it funny you care so much man. If the site didn't work for me on the browser i'm using i'd just use another browser for 2 mins to find out how in debt i am this week.
I know you have a point, but i don't really care lol
JeevesBond posted this at 00:45 — 17th March 2006.
He has: 3,956 posts
Joined: Jun 2002
LOL! I absolutely agree, but I've been swapping out to Firefox for about 2 years now, and it's worn me down. And it's not just this site, this is an example of many. What's even more annoying is how much better everything would be if these problems didn't exist! Sites designed with CSS simply look and feel better.
If every browser supported CSS perfectly we could be concentrating on getting SVG support right, or doing more stuff with XML and other collaborative technologies.
Anyway, it takes anal, annoying people, like myself, to get things done properly!
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Roo posted this at 01:31 — 17th March 2006.
She has: 840 posts
Joined: Apr 1999
What a line of BS! You're right, if they coded correctly to standards they wouldn't have an issue.
What does the code look like? Something out of an Office app?
Roo
Roo posted this at 01:32 — 17th March 2006.
She has: 840 posts
Joined: Apr 1999
Oh BTW....try to use McAffe's site with Firefox or Opera......
teammatt3 posted this at 03:40 — 17th March 2006.
He has: 2,102 posts
Joined: Sep 2003
Good point. Let's all switch back to IE, then we won't notice any problems
demonhale posted this at 04:56 — 17th March 2006.
He has: 3,278 posts
Joined: May 2005
I dont care much about swapping browsers but on regular basis I look and use different browsers... And yes it really looks bad for a major company or corp to not understand that their actually different browsers... Thats why I do extensive cross-browser checks in hoping at least to have it viewed similar and backwards 90% of the time so youcan get meaningful explanations from a site... Explaininjg yourself wouldnt work much... Like "Best Viewed in IE" etc... is kindof lame... make it " be viewed " rather than choose one and code for it...
Busy posted this at 09:28 — 17th March 2006.
He has: 6,151 posts
Joined: May 2001
My bank (ANZ) didn't support firefox, I phoned them up and asked whats up ... long story short they wee only worried about IE because it was the market leader, I tried to explain what a user agent switcher was but fell on deaf ears. I wrote (hand write) a nasty letter to bank manager asking for changes, i got similar reply from him so switched banks, now I can do internet banking (now I just need some money
)
Megan posted this at 14:50 — 17th March 2006.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
This is a bit of a different big company/bad website problem:
My cable company (http://www.rogers.com) has an online utility that lets you change what channels you are subscribed to. The first problem is that it's almost impossible to find it. The second problem is that after you go through the annoying process of picking which new channels you want (and figuring out how you're supposed to do that). You get a message along the lines of "Sorry, the system isn't working right now. Come back later." That's right -after 8 pages of annoying form selections, they tell you the system doesn't work!
Of all places, this also happened to me at Amazon the other day when I was attempting to post a book review. The "post review" link worked, I was able to write my review and even preview it. But when I went to save it? "Sorry, the review system is down right now."
Hello ?!?!?? Wouldn't it be nice to tell people this *before* they go through the work of filling out the forms??
Megan
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Greg K posted this at 17:02 — 17th March 2006.
He has: 2,145 posts
Joined: Nov 2003
Where I was working, we use Authorize.Net for crdit card processing. The revamped their "virtual terminal". Now it only works with IE. What is the big thing that doesn't work? Based on if you choose "Charge a card" or "Credit a card" it will display different input fields. The can't get it to work in firefox....
When I first contacted them becasue it was saying required inforation was supplied (becasue in firefox it didn't show the fields), they told me the problem was the browser, that something is BROKEN IN FIREFOX, so I will have to use IE!!!
Rediculous!
-Greg
Greg K posted this at 17:09 — 17th March 2006.
He has: 2,145 posts
Joined: Nov 2003
These simply translate into "Hey we got our foot in the door, but we are too (pick one: dumb/ignorant/lazy/cheap) to completely come all the way."
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