QA Hates You

As some of you know, I am quite the proponent of client-side validation for Web applications and Web sites. The main reasons are speed and load.
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Microsoft, apparently, is tired of hearing QAHY.com complain about this:

Microsoft Corp. will strip a “click to activate” warning from Internet Explorer 7 starting next month, a company product manager said yesterday, a side benefit of the settlement that Microsoft struck with Eolas Technologies Inc. in August.

Next month, Microsoft will preview the modified Internet Explorer (IE) that eliminates the warning that’s been popping up on screens when users select multimedia content, such as clicking on a link to a Flash file or a PDF document. That notice first appeared in IE in April 2006, when Microsoft began requiring users to approve ActiveX controls the first time they were run from the browser.

Of course, ungentle reader, you’ll be wise to continue testing for it, since the penetration of Internet Explorer 7 is only about half of the total IE market share.

So don’t let your designers point to this as an excuse to be lazy. Because if there’s one thing designers like almost as much as being lazy, it’s an excuse in their own minds that being lazy is okay.

The singular of data is anecdote, and this fellow doesn’t care for Flash-heavy Web design:

Website designers these days need to be rounded up, dragged off and shot.

Who was the genius who decreed that Flash animation on a website is more important than content and navigability? He needs to be dragged off, shot, and then shot again. And then all of his relatives need to be shot. And his little dog, too.

We here at QAHY are far more lenient than this civilian, as we only wish harm upon developers and designers and do not recommend sanction against their families.

A project manager who said no.

(Link seen on another project manager’s site.)

Red Interactive Agency relies on a gee-whizzery front page running Adobe Flash and almost handles users who don’t have Flash installed elegantly.

Click to see full size

I mean, putting the alternative text in #333333 grey against a #000000 background? Who is that helping?

You know, I don’t go looking for problems on the general Web. I mean, I’m paid to do that sort of thing, so when someone pays me, then I start applying my dedicated efforts to flush out problems with Web sites and whatnot. However, I am very, very observant and I notice the little things whenever and wherever I go. But some Web sites are just so rife with problems that I can find handfuls of them just trying to use them.

For instance, the Web site of KMOV, channel 4 in St. Louis.

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We’re not talking about a robust, enterprise-level or core business product software application here, we’re talking about a sweepstakes entry form:

If you’re trying to sign up for the Fred Claus instant win sweepstakes and you’re having trouble seeing where the submit button is in the registration form, it might be because the page uses two arrows on the right-hand side for navigation. Those arrows can be easy to overlook, especially since the form looks finished on the first page, but you have to go down through a couple more pages before you see the submit button.

You know, if you’re designing a form for general consumers, perhaps you should make it so that general consumers can understand it.

By the way, I guess my secret is out; that Web log is where I find a lot of the sweepstakes/promotions that I complain about here.