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Poor usability, Singtel!

I am quite disappointed.

Even the prize of a Motorola V3X cell phone doesn’t alleviate my dissatisafaction with “Asia’s leading communications group with operations and investments in more than 20 countries and territories around the world”

I went to my favourite page at http://home.singtel.com/consumer/msg_center/internet_sms.asp intending to send a SMS out to a friend.

I noticed that soon all Internet SMS users (which let you send free SMS to Singtel users) will need to register.

As a sweetener, they’re giving out Motorola cell phones

Not bad, I’m thinking.

I get to the registration page and guess what I see.

Singtel Internet SMS

Looks pretty ok, you might say.

Until you get to “Agreement between you and SingTel Mobile”

This contains the terms and conditions for use of the service.

Pretty standard you might say.

Being a careful guy, I scroll down to read the t&c, especially if there might be charges involved.

I’m squinting at the three line display.

I scroll down. and read more.

I scroll down. and read more.

I scroll down. and read more.

I scroll down. and read more.

I scroll down. and read more.

I scroll down. and read more.

I scroll down. and read more.

Does this never end?

My eyes are watering from staring at the miniscule text.

Frustrated, I copy the entire block of text and paste it in my text editor.

Turns out it’s about three pages. My word count rates it as 1012 words.

I contribute regularly to article directories and my articles run 400-500 words.

This is like reading 2 articles on screen real estate equivalent to my mobile phone.

It’s take about 200 taps on the scrollbar to read the entire message.

What’s the deal, SingTel?

Usability should be one of the key considerations.

Some things that could be done to improve this:

  • Increase the display to at least 5 lines
  • Use a larger font size to increase readability (especially appreciated by the long-sighted)
  • The best: have the terms and conditions appear in a pop up window

We want technology to make things easier, not more difficult.

Class dismissed.

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