Usability issues – learn what NOT to do by going into a public sector phone company site

I’ve been spending a lot of time learning about usability and good practices on design, and one of my favorites is Pluralsight‘s Creating User Experiences: Fundamental Design Principles from Billy Holis, so now I pay close attention to the sites for which I interact with on a daily basis. (And yes, need to update my blog too…)

I learn from looking at all things done wrong and going into Costa Rica’s public phone company site is the equivalent of a roller coaster ride for a UX exercise. Just a few ones of my favorites

You log in and there is no easy navigation at the top. You have to keep navigating through images with some text. The text is explanatory, but no easy way to navigate

Another one of my favorites, you get sort of used to their navigation way and then find out that a lot of links are in fact NOT links. Look at the “link” in the red box. Not clickable!

Another funny one. I created an account with them, they have my phone, cell phone, electricity and everything. Why do I have to fill in all the fields again when I need to ask for something, complain, request a service or so on and so forth. Yes I know, some bureaucratic knuckle head might think “oh! what if I want to ask for something for someone else?”. Well, when did someone else go stay in line for hours (or so) to get your electricity set up? Unless you are reasonably rich, might not be the case.

Oh well… I shall say no more. I want electricity when I get back home hahahaa