Tony ([info]quikchange) wrote,
@ 2008-05-01 09:08:00
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Current mood: annoyed
Current music:Hope - Marina V
Entry tags:technology

Dear banks, please make your websites stop sucking
Over the past few days I've been using the websites of various financial institutions and have been frustrated by how terrible they are.

While trying to change my 401k investments at Fidelity, I was stymied by an error message that told me my fund choices could not be honoured by the website and I should call them instead. Upon calling them I was informed that one of my selections was no longer available and had not been so since 2004. Since 2004! Why then is it still showing up in my list of available funds!? And why doesn't the website let me know what the problem is so i can alter my selection instead of being forced to wait for business hours and call them?

Today I tried to log into my CitiBank account, only to find myself presented with the login page again. There was no error message provided. After retrying my password - the same one I'd used successfully yesterday - I called them and was told that the website was being updated and I should try again in an hour. Again, why don't they state these things on the website...? Bizarrely, I was then able to login using the current beta version of Opera, although not with Safari 3.1.1.

Even ING isn't that great. The ask you to provide a "Saver ID" but make absolutely no mention of the purpose that it serves. They then send an email thanking you for creating this ID but still neglect to mention where you can use it! Finally, they allow you to link one external account for ACH transfer when you create your account but force you to mail them paper cheques to add subsequent ones. Why!?

I remember when the websites of financial institutions sucked back in the late 90s but I figured that they were still getting the hang of this newfangled Web thing. Well, it's been a bloody decade and they still suck. No wonder so few people use online banking... So I'm offering up my services as a professional UI designer at no charge to financial institutions that want to make their websites suck less. Give me a test account (if I don't already have one) and I will tell you how to improve your customer satisfaction with online financial interaction.


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[info]thewizard
2008-05-01 04:26 pm UTC (link)
BMO and PCFinancial's websites seem sane. The new security features are kind of annoying but only because I have to prove who I am instead of cranking out a password like a call/response machine.

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[info]quikchange
2008-05-03 03:44 pm UTC (link)
Yes, the "click on buttons arranged in random layout" approach to entering passwords is very annoying but at least I can understand why they do that.

I hear HSBC has a good website too and I recall liking TD's back when I still used them. The UBS website is ugly but usable, as is the Stanford Federal Credit Union one.

So they're not all bad.

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[info]shade_42
2008-05-01 05:34 pm UTC (link)
Dude, I don't think they read your blog

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[info]quikchange
2008-05-01 06:18 pm UTC (link)
You never know ;-p

After all, I didn't think the Solaris developers read it either!

(Reply to this)(Parent)
Being misleading
[info]quikfanclub
2008-05-02 02:44 pm UTC (link)
I think CitiBank purposely did not put a message saying "Our website will be down for the next hour while we perform updates." because that would make their service seem plainly unreliable. By just bouncing back to the login page, they don't have to admit to a service break-down; perhaps many people were fooled into thinking the problem was at their own end and opted to try again later ("when the computer stops acting up.")

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Re: Being misleading
[info]quikchange
2008-05-02 02:56 pm UTC (link)
That's certainly a viable theory, although I remain reluctant to attribute to malice what can easily be explained by incompetence.

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