Deborah Lipp

My day job is as a tech writer. I do end user documentation, but I also work on things like interface design and usability. This all sounds like gobbledygook until you’re standing in the middle of a situation in which no one cares about interface design or usability.

So I ordered something for Arthur from Office Depot. Their website was down so I called. After the order was placed I was given a Customer ID number and a Confirmation number. These are the exact words the doofus on the phone used. Customer ID number. Confirmation number.

So Arthur didn’t get his item and I went to the website to see what I could see. I find a page called “Order Tracking.”

Step 1: Enter your Order Number.
Step 2: Enter your Phone Number or Account Number.

You understand, I had neither an “Order Number” nor an “Account Number,” and this is where most people would have given up. But being me, and kinda into these things, I entered the Confirmation number as my Order Number, and I entered the Customer ID as the Account Number, and ba-da-bing, there was my order.

On a usability scale, this is a FAIL.

So, my quest is to save the world one web page at a time.