Pesimism the Key to Successful Web Apps
Long time no blog post, eh? I guess what finally got me off my ass and into WordPress was part of the reason why my last post was almost a month ago. That would be “compulsory schooling”. No huge change, but a new semester, harder courses, more work, I’m sure most of you know how it goes. Harder courses plus I need to get higher marks because I found out last semester I’m going to be an accountant 
Yet I digress, to the much relevant point. Customer service guidlines say that the customer is always right. While any returns line at Wal-Mart can prove this is abused by consumers, it does not tread into the deep waters of web development.
Web development, software development, you name it- if you’re programming something you have to assume your user knows nothing. My computer science teacher made a reference to an Ornagutan. Write your program as if a big, orange hairy mamal was going at it. This is why we error check, have precautions and spend half our time writing in conditions for what shouldn’t happen.
Why? Becuasewhat shouldn’t happen will always happen. So it comes that time of year where I need to select to final high school courses I’ll ever need, providing I don’t fail all my classes and don’t have a ridiculously explosive track season. I get to the deliciously disgusting school board site to go through some hack job JavaScript and ASP with the intentions of eventually making it through the jungle of confirmation screens to the successful temple awaiting me at the end.
Obstacle one: the login screen. Enter your student ID and password. Seems easy enough, right? My student ID is no problem considering from the ripe age of 8 or so we were all tagged with a six digit code making the oh-so-cute little kids only more like goats. The password, which is the more complicated part, presents the problem. It defualts to your birthday in the form YYMMDD. Hey, I know my birthday!
Oh wait, they didn’t reset them from last year.
Ok, no problem, I’ll just trackback a year and remember the password. So even though the writer of the site gets the Orangutan thing down (more like condescending intructions), who ever decided it was best not to reset all the passwords to YYMMDD wasn’t quite thinking straight.
Pros for resetting all the passwords:
- Everyone can login, there won’t be a crowded “counselling” office tomorrow morning trying to reset their password.
Cons for resetting all the passwords
- The slow kids might take two tries to login.
As you can see with those two enormous lists detailing a completely objective view of the two arguments, it would be nice if the 75% of kids who have done this before (the other 25% or so do it for the first time this year) could get in.
Security vs. Accessibility
One could argue the system is more secure with our custom set passwords. One could also say the site isn’t paritularly accessible to those with insignificant event long term memory disorders. Really, who remembers what they had for breakfast they had for lunch a year ago.
If my memory serves (which it doesn’t, apparently), they have reset the passwords in the past. For a password you’ll only ever use twice in your life (considerring you’re not failure kind of person) it doesn’t strike me as something I’ll need to keep in the front of my mind, you know, for a year from now.
So this leaves me and everyone I could get a hold of sitting, waiting for some “counselling” bright and early tomorrow. To great effect, the “counselling” department happens to be the most condescending and generally “out of it” group of former teachers waiting for they day they can retire away to their cottages. That being said, you could imagine they technological prowess, and their extensive web slang vocabulary.
So the website didn’t work? Did you enter your birthday? Can’t you remember the password?
I avoid this “counselling” department as much as I can, but last year I had to make sure my courses were going to work out for this year, because I was taking some abnormal things that needed to be in seperate places. The schedule they had original given me actually took courses out and gave me spare periods so that I could have a lunch on on of the “lunch periods”. I ended up just taking my lunch on a different period so everything could work out. Odd that I had to go in there to apply common sense so that my whole future didn’t get screwed up by the aforementioned “counsellors” who are practically sprinting out the door at 3:02 everyday.
I guess this is a byproduct of my distaste for “counsellors” (they’re on par with school librarians for me- no offence to real librarians) and newcourse stress, but the song remains the same: People are stupid (especially counsellors). Program accordingly.
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