Your password can have at least 1 cyrillic character

July 4, 2019 5:03 AM

Hi and welcome to User Inyerface, a challenging exploration of user interactions and design patterns. To play the game, simply fill in the form as fast and accurate as possible.
posted by Vesihiisi (43 comments total)

I hate this. I hate it.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 5:11 AM on July 4, 2019 [6 favorites]

If, like me, you have no interest in "playing", you can see much of it in the Ars Technica article about it.
posted by bonehead at 5:27 AM on July 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

Wow, my heart rate went up so fast and so hard that I wonder if a medical disclaimer might be useful.
posted by wakannai at 5:46 AM on July 4, 2019 [4 favorites]

"It didn't even spell 'Captchca' right! You animals!"
posted by Rhaomi at 5:56 AM on July 4, 2019

I’d been meaning to post this here all day, so thank you for posting this on here for me
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:04 AM on July 4, 2019

Wait, I spent 9:48 to apply to be a project manager? Pass. I figured they’d at least be in the market for a Selenium tester...
posted by sysinfo at 6:23 AM on July 4, 2019

It was kind of fun, at first...

(16:37 here.)
posted by redrawturtle at 6:25 AM on July 4, 2019

The month drop-down was sorted alphabetically, of course.

The Ars Technica article says it "upends conventions" but some of it is just collecting terrible ideas in one place. For instance, I needed to enter a valid Zip code to proceed to the next screen and that meant valid according to U.S. conventions, even if I had another country selected, so I entered 90210, which is absolutely a thing I've had to do on a supposedly serious web form in the past. The drop-down for "title" included only Mr. and Mrs.
posted by RobotHero at 6:34 AM on July 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

Weirdly, 90210 is my default test ZIP too.

Part of my most recent job has been testing online forms so I blazed through this in 5:28. I'm sure if I hadn't been keeping a mental checklist of the UI crimes on offer here I could have been faster.
posted by Molesome at 6:39 AM on July 4, 2019

OK, so how the fsck do you get past the captcha?
posted by pharm at 6:41 AM on July 4, 2019

The captcha has an internal vertical scroll; scroll _up_.
posted by metaquarry at 6:42 AM on July 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

Yeah, I worked that gotcha out. You still have to guess which of the possibilities they actually mean. Are you just supposed to click on all of them?
posted by pharm at 6:44 AM on July 4, 2019

That's what got me through the captcha with "bows" (a mix of decoratively tied ribbons, archery equipment and people showing respect).
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 6:47 AM on July 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

My favourite detail is the way that pressing the tab key to get to the next text box usually makes the cursor disappear, but sometimes makes it pop up in another, apparently random text box.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 7:14 AM on July 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

(I don't know why I looked at the Terms and Conditions for a clue about what email address to pick but I did and I could only marvel in appreciation at the scrolling speed and did I mention they don't let you use page up or page down in it?)
posted by redrawturtle at 7:17 AM on July 4, 2019 [4 favorites]

While trying to get past the first screen I fat fingered the link to the Bagaar site and I cannot tell if it is part of the satire or not.
posted by Pembquist at 7:18 AM on July 4, 2019

I checked this out when it popped up in a recent AskMe (which is fun). But for whatever reason I couldn't get past the first screen and abandoned all hope.
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:27 AM on July 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

Things aren't properly sign-posted; it seems to want you to read the text as written while ignoring all the visual cues. I think so, anyway. I don't know. Maybe.

And with that I should go and get some sleep.
posted by redrawturtle at 7:36 AM on July 4, 2019

Huh. I can't get past the first screen too. Running Chromium on Raspbian.

*sad face*
posted by kathrynm at 8:03 AM on July 4, 2019

I'm disappointed that it was possible to scroll to the bottom of the TOS agreement before the heat death of the universe. The industry can do better than this.
posted by joeyh at 8:07 AM on July 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

I got to the first screen and then closed the window.

Do I win?
posted by ODiV at 8:18 AM on July 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

Excuse me, but Valid Placeholderson is my real name, how do I contact an administrator?
posted by ckape at 8:50 AM on July 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

Excuse me, but Valid Placeholderson is my real name, how do I contact an administrator?

[e-mail]
posted by EndsOfInvention at 9:09 AM on July 4, 2019 [8 favorites]

There's a difference between bad ux (like sorting months alphabetically) and broken implementation (like placeholders not disappearing when you click a field) -- the former are intentional but not intentionally bad, while the later are just...broken, in a way that a ux person would be the first to file a bug on.
posted by davejay at 9:52 AM on July 4, 2019

Oh and some are bad visde, where the placement and intention are right and the functionality works, but the designer subverted it.
posted by davejay at 9:55 AM on July 4, 2019

The age slider ... I've definitely seen legit places use that. Horrible. And your gender and title have to match ):
posted by gaybobbie at 10:35 AM on July 4, 2019

Yeah, the "validation" isn't upending a convention, it's fully embracing the worst of conventions.

Back when I did web dev, I did fight some things people asked for out of habit in favour of free-form when I could. Stuff like people would ask for name entry to be separate fields for first and last name, drop-down for title, addresses with separate text fields for number and street name.

And I had to be the one going, "There's no crucial need to break these things into atomic units. Nobody's going to forget if they have both a first and last name."
posted by RobotHero at 11:50 AM on July 4, 2019

I expected the password requirements to be so much more onerous. That and the captcha were significantly less bad than some non-satirical implementations I've seen.
posted by aws17576 at 11:55 AM on July 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

I feel like it kind of defeats its purpose as an example if you can't see or do all of it, so a part of me wants to make a guide to get through it with the least amount of fuss. (I can't really promise this as a sure thing that I will provide, though, because posting anxiety and I have definitely posted too many times in one day, in one post, already.)

Though, yeah, the Ars Technica article bonehead linked to above does have all the pages in the process screenshotted. I'm fairly sure it does, anyway.
posted by redrawturtle at 1:16 PM on July 4, 2019

I have to deal with a password prompt on a vendors site that puts this to shame, it's as close to impossible as you can get-- so much so that I have to deal with the password resets for people within our company who cannot get past it.

It has three main rules, 8 characters or more, one capital letter and at least one number. Numbers also can't be repeated. Sounds simple enough, but it also does some background checks based of, well, I have no idea, that decides if the password is too similar to a profile/account attribute or past password.

Which leads to absolute maddening cycle of:

password: ujRKGK8YxZQ -> Nope, too close to an account attribute
password: iG^!6VfhQBeA -> Nope, too close to an account attribute
password: ThunderPants28 -> Nope, too close to an account attribute

Until you get lucky and the algorithm takes a coffee break and you run past with a sneaky 'A,CK2g)@s?kbd'. And of course, passwords need to be changed every 30 days, so I through this rage inducing performance on behalf or multiple users who just cannot get past it's stupidity multiple times a week.
posted by Static Vagabond at 1:18 PM on July 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

Nobody's going to forget if they have both a first and last name.

I always thought separate first & last name fields were so they could use your first name in the chatbots and sort by last name for their internal tracking. If they're one field, you run into all sorts of issues with people who have more than one space in their name, or who use a two-word first name and don't bother putting in their last name.

None of that matters if it's only for their specific users, but if they're attaching it to external databases, they'll want first and last to match their other data sources.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 2:31 PM on July 4, 2019

Of course, trying to be clever about first and last names is going to cause you problems whenever you try to deal with Korean and/or Bajoran names.
posted by ckape at 3:30 PM on July 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

Super annoying. The once-a-minute “you’re taking too long” and the pop-up “do you need help” were especially annoying. (I was entering stuff on my phone, I don’t know if the help pop up covered most of the screen if you’re doing this on a computer...)

And the age had to match the date of birth. But they were happy with someone who was 104, which was a relief. It was easier to choose an age and then compute the year rather than vice versa...stupid slider.
posted by leahwrenn at 4:55 PM on July 4, 2019

You still have to guess which of the possibilities they actually mean. Are you just supposed to click on all of them?

For the "light" one I selected all the ones shown to be emitting light in the picture (i.e., including flames and electric lights that were on, excluding feathers and electric lights that were off); for "bows" I selected all of them (knots, arrow-shooters, and postures — kind of surprised they didn't throw the front of a ship in there). I don't know if I was just lucky and got them both "right" the first time, or the system actually has a bit of mercy at this point and allows more than one answer.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 8:54 PM on July 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

Wow I feel so lucky that all it showed me was a blank blue screen. Did I break it? Did I win>
posted by a humble nudibranch at 9:57 PM on July 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

Omigod I'm 2 minutes in and can't stop laughing at this. The cat is looking at me all concerned. As a former technical writer I heartily approve of this hilariously annoying site.
posted by mediareport at 5:23 AM on July 5, 2019 [3 favorites]

I love how the Ars Technica article says "If you can't make it, though, just look at our images below for a summary of what's in store" but the images show up for me *above* the article text. Meta!
posted by mediareport at 5:34 AM on July 5, 2019 [3 favorites]

I laughed loudly at the scrolling speed in the Terms & Conditions pop-up.
posted by Rock Steady at 5:36 AM on July 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

3:14! I deal with bad UI on a daily basis, though, so I suppose I had a leg up.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:19 AM on July 5, 2019

We may consider and approve in our sole discretion other link requests from the following types of organizations:
-commonly-known consumer and/or business information sources such as Chambers of Commerce, American Automobile Association, AARP and Consumers Union;
- dot.com community sites;
- associations or other groups representing charities, including charity giving sites,
- online directory distributors;
- internet portals;
- accounting, law and consulting firms whose primary clients are businesses; and
- educational institutions and trade associations.

I hope somebody asked for permission
posted by General Malaise at 11:31 AM on July 5, 2019

I thought this was great, it took me almost ten minutes but I did spend the first few minutes telling other people to try it out.

I deal with worse screens on a regular basis, at least here it's possible to get to the end.
posted by meowzilla at 12:27 PM on July 5, 2019

For the "light" one I selected all the ones shown to be emitting light in the picture (i.e., including flames and electric lights that were on, excluding feathers and electric lights that were off); for "bows" I selected all of them (knots, arrow-shooters, and postures — kind of surprised they didn't throw the front of a ship in there).

I tried to replicate this and had no success. I've had no success with any other set of combinations either. I still have absolutely no idea how to get past the capcha screen. Can anyone else shed light on their tactics?

As an additional note, I tried to use this first on an iphone and as far as I know there is no way to progress once you open the Terms and Conditions box - the close button is off screen with no way to scroll to it. Also (as noted previously) the 'help' box totally covers the screen every time it appears.

The immediate and palpable tension and anxiety I feel while trying to use this site are pretty astounding. It's a phenomenal demo - that reminds me of trying to do anything online with Telstra (any other Aussies feel it too?)

Some of the things that contribute to the stress are obviously annoying (the 'time is ticking' pop-up) but others are more subtle and dastardly (eg the effect of the moving '1-2-3-4' circles - adding a kind of background itch you can't scratch). And the box marked 'box' when I don't have, you know, a box number. It's annoying enough as a demo. If I were relying on this form to get something important I'd have thrown my computer at a wall by now.
posted by archy at 1:48 AM on July 6, 2019

For the 'light' Captcha, I did the same thing as mentioned above by Homeboy Trouble about 'bows': I selected everything. I simply couldn't get a combination that worked. At some point, I started reasoning that everything was 'light' in some way: the lights were lights, the feathers were light, the fires were emitting light, and so on, so forth.

I gave up and checked all the boxes.
posted by redrawturtle at 11:26 PM on July 6, 2019