I was doing a little competitor research yesterday—as one does—when I came across one of the worst “security” checks I have seen.
It’s normal, if not expected, to come across security questions like reCAPTCHAs during account sign-ups, logins, or purchase check-outs. This site I found was no different in intent, but for a second there, I thought the execution was a joke.
Ohh... oh no. Where to begin?
We’re going to get to the glaring usability issue in a minute of putting the question inside the field, but we’ve got to start with the question itself.
Which grass? Whose grass? I live on the 10th floor of a residential building and have no grass; not even a little turf spot on the balcony to rub my feets into.
I know what they want me to say, but I don’t think they’ve adequately considered what a lawn looks like during a dry spell. That grass is as yellow and crunchy as can be. Boise State Broncos fans might even argue that the best grass is an opponent-disorienting blue.
How dare this field tell me I got it wrong! I want to speak to the manager haha. I have logic and reasoning on my side, and many a pedantic opinion!
What do you have to say for yourself?
Oof! What a sucker punch. You got me with the one-two. Low blow, man, low blow.
Now I’ve got to describe the sky? Come to think of it, I don’t know what the colour of the sky is on Mars… is it rust-brown too? I’ve heard that the view from Disneyland, California is a scorching hot orange right now from all the wildfires, but somehow I don’t think this security field is that up to date with current events.
Specificities matter here—I don’t want to get this wrong!
I feel for the colourblind. Grey or greyish-blue I don’t suspect is going to cut it with this website. Not very accessible, now are we?
The grass attack is back!
You seemed to have learned your lesson in not putting the question you want me to answer inside the field. I’m glad you recognised how difficult that is to check if we users have entered an appropriate answer without being able to remember whether you had asked for the colour of a pizza or the shape of a tree.
In case this was just an accidental achievement on your part though, I highly recommend this NNg article describing why form field placeholders should generally be avoided.
Personal Updates
Last month I started a new contract role as a UX Strategist for a nationwide non-profit in New Zealand, and as such, hadn’t been writing as much here as I had originally planned.
The two main (personal) issues I’m having are:
Me not taking a relaxed-enough approach to publishing these blogs; meaning I’m not writing anything unless it feels like it’d be deserving of being published in a Medium.com article in terms of content quality
Accessing Squarespace itself where this blog of mine is hosted (at time of writing). I want an editor that feels accessible from my mobile phone so that I could share updates and thoughts from my phone as inspiration came calling, and that is simply not the case with this platform.
Will I change my fate and find something better in both what I use and the pressure I put on myself? Only time will tell… let’s not wait around though. Knowing me, it could be a while.