I just finished buying a bouquet of flowers for my Mom for her birthday. (Happy early birthday if you’re reading this, Mom! Sorry about ruining the surprise.)

I got them–as I usually do–from 1-800-FLOWERS.com. I choose the site mostly because I remember it, not because I feel any customer loyalty towards the brand.

I was frustrated three times during the buying process; no wonder I feel no loyalty.

First, I had accidentally put in my Mom’s birthday as the delivery date, which is on Sunday. When the order page reappeared after I clicked submit I knew something was wrong, but only because that shouldn’t have been the expected outcome.

It took me a little while to determine what the problem was because the "error" page looked almost identical to the original page. It turns out that the block where I fill out the delivery date was a pinkish-red color, not the color it had been on the previous page.

Also, near it was another pinkish-red box that had a nearly illegible note that Sunday was not a possible delivery date. It was black print on a dark box at an incredibly small font. I had to lean forward to read it.

Cheap Solution: Put the error message at the top of the error page where it can’t be missed. Don’t try and coordinate the error message, where the error needs to be corrected, with the rest of the color scheme; make it clash! Make it stand out. No one cares if you error message looks beautiful; they just want to find it.

Elegant Solution: Before the form is processed, check to see if the delivery date is on a Sunday or any other holiday and alert me of the problem immediately. Then it is obvious to me where I need to make a fix. I wouldn’t expect this level of sophistication out of a small mom-and-pop site, but I do expect it out of a major site like 1-800-FLOWERS.

Secondly, I got an error message when I put in the billing and delivery information. This time, I did get an alert before the form was processed, but the message was wrong.

I put in our phone numbers with dots, à la 207.871.7921. The error message told me that I needed to put in a phone number that included 7 – 16 digits. No mention of punctuation.

Let’s see, one, two, three…seven. Seems like that’s correct. However, having been doing this for some time, I re-entered the phone numbers with dashes, 207-871-7921. Apparently this is now 7 digits long, and the order was processed.

Cheap Solution: Put a note in the telephone field that says to use dashes only. Or, correct the information in the error message.

Elegant Solution: Accept dots, dashes, and parentheses. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

Thirdly, I decided to help 1-800-FLOWERS by reporting these problems along with suggested solutions. First, I tried using their requested feedback form, hosted by BizRate. Unfortunately, that was more of a feedback survey that didn’t get to the heart of my issues.

Then I tried to contact customer support. I elegantly dodged their knowledge base and FAQ, as those wouldn’t help me in this situation. However, the online form was cumbersome, requested a bunch of information on the order, such as order number, and all the customer info again. (Shouldn’t you already have that?) Finally, the form got submitted before I ever saw a field where I could put an actual comment or question.

I’m sure if I tried again, I could get it, but I just gave up at that point.

Luckily for me, I have this blog as an outlet. Unfortunately for 1-800-FLOWERS, they’ve just lost out on a lot of good, free feedback on how to improve their service. (Unless one of their reps is monitoring this blog, which is unlikely.)

Of course, if they were forward thinking, they would be monitoring the blogosphere to find out what other people were saying about 1-800-FLOWERS by using Technorati or a similar service.

What can you, the small business owner, learn from this?

First, don’t piss me off. (And by "me" I mean your customers.)

Second, test the forms on your site. Don’t try and just use them, try and break them. What are the error messages? Is this the message you want to communicate to your prospects and clients? Is this how you want to be treated?

If not, improve your error messages to be more specific and more friendly. Or better yet, develop a form that’s more forgiving.

Rich Brooks
Happy Birthday, Mom!

Jakob Nielsen has posted his Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005. For those of you who don’t know, Nielsen is widely considered to be the usability guru on the Web.

Personally, I think he takes his job a little too seriously.

I’ll admit, if all Web designers adopted his usability tenets the Web would be a better place to work and play. However, if they all adopted his designs the Web would be as dull as kindergarten scissors.

Co-workers would put down their mice and start getting some real work done. Couples would stop downloading porn and start talking to each other. Children would go outside and play. Oh, the horror!

But I digress.

The list does include some of my pet peeves, such as underlined words that aren’t links, Flash intros, and forms with too many questions.

However, Nielsen does go overboard on some items. I believe fixed vs. fluid Web sites are a choice, not wrong vs. right. Although flyte’s Web site is fluid, a fixed site allows for better control over layout…something many designers prefer that doesn’t need to negatively impact the user experience. Usability doesn’t go down because there’s a lot of white space on the page.

Note: my exception to his rule doesn’t cover creating sites that are too wide to fit on common browser windows. That’s just wrong. (Not that we haven’t been guilty of that once or twice.)

Also, although it only got an (Dis) Honorable Mention, having a link on the home page to the home page MAY seem redundant, but it’s not really all that bad. Personally, I prefer consistent navigation throughout the Web site, including a home button. I find it distracting when buttons disappear from page to page to let me know what page I’m on. There’s better approaches to solving that particular dilemma.

Now, Nielsen says that this year he got his top ten list from his readers, so some might argue that these aren’t necessarily his opinions, but the opinions of Web users everywhere. However, that would be like my rabbi polling the congregation and claiming, "It’s official! Chanukah rules, Christmas drools!" In other words the choir is preaching to the preacher.

Rich Brooks
Usability Doesn’t Have to Be Ugly