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Previous: AOL cancellation process | Main | Next: Sign with sharp edges
June 29, 2006 12:03 AM
Broken: Microsoft survey
Cary Lee points out:
The question "Are there children present in your household?" gives two possible answers:
"Yes" and "No plans to purchase."
No, I have no plans to buy any children!
It shocks me how nobody at these multi-million dollar companies has anyone look over their text. It would take very little cost compared to the great protection of the customer's experience. It's this kind of thing that gets people to view such a company as too large and lumbering to take care of a simple task. In fact, this may not be far from the truth.
some things are only funny a few times, then they get old.
this isn't one of them. Holy sh.It's an instant classic.
Very Broken indeed. But to Cary Lee:
1. Why do you use Internet Explorer? Use Firefox.
2. Why are you completing a survey for MS?
3. Why do you use Microsoft Office? Use OpenOffice.org
Good that you use Google and that you are showing how stupid Microsoft is, though!
This is a good example of poor proofreading and/or poor testing. Ever get a pop-up message box with something like "Windows has encountered a serious error." (there is no other choice) WHAT IF ITS NOT OK, what do I do?
This is certainly broken, and also pretty funny, but let's be reasonable. Microsoft must produce 100,000 public-facing words a day, across websites and product documentation and who knows what else. Even proofreaders make mistakes.
Gotta love Microsoft. Maybe they think they're so big they can buy children with al the money they scam off people.
Want to bet that the problem is outsourcing. Probably the person who wrote the survey doesn't actually speak English.
On the other hand maybe they know something we don't. Is it possible this is why I see so many children in shopping carts at the store ;-)
Well, I admit that many years ago I asked humorously someone when they were going to upgrade their dog to color.
The dog had fur that looked like the result of displaying a color picture on a monochrome screen.
well I bought my first kid from microsoft 2 years ago. I have to reboot him every 20 minutes or he gets that blue screen look in the face.
you know, this could also mean
"no- plans to buy" i.e. I don't have any but I have plans to buy some. the message still isn't any better, though.
Is similar to the Crest survey I recently took. It was for a new mouthwash coupon.
Q1 Asked where you saw the ad. It had a bunch of
different TV channels. They weren't in alphabetical order. Last choice was "I don't know or can't remember". Thing is I DID remember but the chnl wasn't listed. Whatever happened to the old standby "other"?
Q2 Was what brand mouthwash you use. Last choice was "I don't use mouthwash"
Q3 was all about how often you use mouthwash.
The kicker to this madness was you had to pick an answer for each question. I sent them an E and
told them it was the absolute worst survey I had ever seen and asked if anyone actually spent more than 5 minutes making it up. They actually answered and said they would forward my comments to the proper people. I must admit though when the coupon arrived there was a letter from the
woman that had replied to my E and it stated that she did pass on the info. Wasn't the normal canned letter by any means. I thought that was a nice touch.
My vote on the post: BROKEN
P.S. I agree 100% with k00ld00d about Firefox. It runs rings around that POS IE. Plus there are a ton of really great extensions you can add.
Heh. I'm pretty sure I know what caused this, since I ran across a similar problem in an app I support, not long ago.
SELECT id, answer FROM answers WHERE answer LIKE '%No%'
I'm not fond of that developer.
Can't forget Child 2.0 Server Edition! Oh! Pocket Child. And Apple is now shipping iChild and iChild Pro in White, or by popular demand, Black. I like Apple. They sell uncrashable Children.
If you're in the market for children, consider buying an orphan: http://www.ccrane.com/antennas/wifi-antennas/super-usb-wifi-antenna.aspx
I did a double-take...
Hah! Like I'd buy a child from Microsoft. They only have a 10 year warrenty. Any design flaws that show up after puberty is no longer their problem.
Beyond the inherent stupidity of the second answer, it appears to me that this survey implies choosing only one of the 2 optional answers. The thing is that both answers are not mutually exclusive.
What I mean is, I have children present in my household, but at the same time I don't have any plans to "purchase" any additional children. Then, both answers are true and correct, but apparently I'm forced to choose only one of them. If so, which one should I choose?
The same applies in the opposite direction, maybe there's someone who doesn't have any children at home and at the same time is not planning to have any. Both answers are correct. Which one should he choose?
BROKEN, BROKEN, BROKEN.
Just bad punctuation, but the message isn't broken.
Obviously, everyone wants a new, state of the art, MS developed child, so there can be no "No" option. The only possible responses from any reasonable people would by "Yes" or "No, I have yet to buy one"
In an attempt to avoid beating that joke to death, I noticed that Microsoft calls their software "software productivity suites."
1. I assume that means Microsoft considers it productive for workers to swear at their computers when Microsoft Word crashes and erases their work.
2. "Software productivity suite"? Can't they come up with something more elegant and less long-winded? Well, in that case, I guess the one I use most is Microsoft Place of Business Where Professional or Clerical Duties are Performed.
Bill Gates is kiddnaping children and seloing them?!?!? are you sure he isn't related to micheal Jackson
OMG... This happens to me too much... I hate it. It seems that my post didn't go through, but it did.
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Previous: AOL cancellation process | Main | Next: Sign with sharp edges
I've been thinking of upgrading my current child whenever the new version comes out, but only if he's running Vista right out of the box-
Posted by: abcdario at June 29, 2006 12:17 AM