Sunday, October 18, 2009

Why Do Web Page Creators Make It So Hard to Contact Them?

One of my pet peeves is that if you see an error on a web page, and you want to notify someone in charge, it is usually difficult or impossible to do so. As a challenge, try to find the web page where you can report an error in Google Maps. It's not easy.

Here's another example. I recently bought a Canon scanner, and was curious about the technology. So I turned to their web pages, and found this page, which discusses it.

In the middle of the discussion, however, you find this bizarre sentence:

Yes, but I'll change it.

Obviously this was left in from the editing process. But how can you report it? Canon's web page doesn't have a "report error on this page" link, and their on-line form demands you pull down menus to pick a particular product (which isn't really apppropriate). Then, after I went through the whole process of filling out their form, and clicked "send", it reported that there was an error with their server.

I guess Canon is simply not interested in people pointing out silly errors on their pages.

7 comments:

Michael said...

Actually, Google Maps now has pretty easy-to-find error reporting: right click on the map and select "Report a problem". That's not to say it will get fixed, of course.

Ian said...

That's the reason I fell in love with Wikipedia the first time I laid eyes on it (back in 2004).

Frank Abbing said...

On the Canon page you mention there is a 'contact' link. On that page, at the very bottom, is a 'feedback' possibility.

Jeffrey Shallit said...

Frank:

Try reading more carefully. I wrote, their on-line form demands you pull down menus to pick a particular product (which isn't really apppropriate). Then, after I went through the whole process of filling out their form, and clicked "send", it reported that there was an error with their server.

Frank Abbing said...

The Canon server seems to like me, it didn't complain. I left your remark about the silly sentence.

George said...

What I hate is blog comment pages that get syntax errors upon submission (or require you to sign up as a user). Nothing worse than typing a long comment and having it rejected.

Or how about "home pages" where the full name of the person is nowhere to be found, or no method of contact is listed. I've come across a few of these.

Gerry said...

George, I bet if you really try you'll be able to think of a few things worse than typing a long comment and having it rejected.