#webappdesign — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

RaymondPierreL3 @[email protected] · 2025-09-10 · 05:23 UTC

Got my Opal card in the mail today and I went to activate it online. After I swore my head off for a while, I closed my browser and resolved to have another go when I’ve calmed down in a day or two. Which lead me to thinking… not a good thing…about web site developers.

I’m going to generalise here of course so forgive me if I lump anyone here in the same boat.

Consider a person recently moved into NSW from another jurisdicition where they posessed a transport card. They went to speak to a person behind a counter for other paperwork and asked about the Opal card. They followed the advice and sometime later received a card in the mail. Bear in mind that this person is older than 75. After reading the accompanying letter they started their browser (they know how to do that much though not all of their cohort do). Q: did the web developerr ever thought about how this person would navigate their cool webdev product? A: No. Why? Let me postulate.

It never occured to the developer that a user might not be terribly good at navigating his design because they assumed everyone are app savvy these days. Solution: Ensure your testing includes some dumb arsed pensionners !

#WebDev #GovernmentPortals #OnLineProcessing
#WebAppDesign #KnowYourCustomers

/end_of_rant

#webdev #governmentportals #onlineprocessing #webappdesign #knowyourcustomers