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AT&T's Rube Golbergian Web Form

blog.joellehman.com

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Re: AT&T's Rube Golbergian Web Form

#51

Post by rm-rf »

brudgers wrote: post #26
false wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, and how these reasoning justifies the need of ActiveX (the solely reason of IE8 installation) in order to fill in a web form?

I suspect that ActiveX enabled browsers allows them to further reduce support costs, e.g. installing a 32 bit version of IE8 allows the Flash driver to be installed thereby reducing calls from grandpa whose new system came with a 64 bit version of Windows 7 and therefor uses the x64 version of IE by default - not to mention that ActiveX also allows ATT to install more powerful software on the customers browser for su…

And -

To (hopefully) install a shim that lets them install software that lets their help desk help their customer more effectively. If I were trying to support millions of 'ordinary users' and had them calling me every time anything didn't work the way they expected, I'd want something on their desktop that let me help them (a gotomypc type of agent, for example).

Re: AT&T's Rube Golbergian Web Form

#52

Post by rm-rf »

nose wrote: post #19

Now: Would DropBox do something this silly? Yeah. DropBox installs Growl without the user's permission. http://growl.info/thirdpartyinstallations.php

And just for kicks, they accidentally open up your files to anyone who knows your e-mail address.

Re: AT&T's Rube Golbergian Web Form

#53

Post by ilamont »

brudgers wrote: post #29
ilamont wrote: post #16

How many people give up before reaching the form, and end up calling someone at AT&T for help? The costs must be enourmous.

ATT has a pretty good infrastructure for handling phone calls from customers - being that they are a phone company with more than 120 years of experience in doing so (founded 1885). So it is probably not as expensive as one might think at first blush.

Something I heard from a senior developer at another well-established phone/cable/ISP: the company will do everything in its power to avoid having staff pick up the phone, including avoiding development of new products or features that might generate support calls. At the scale of a large telco/ISP, having just 10% of users calling up tech support and talking with a rep for a few minutes adds up.

Re: AT&T's Rube Golbergian Web Form

#54

Post by Hoff »

underwater wrote: post #50

I just signed up for AT&T and their whole signup process is incredibly broken. Their customer section is divided into three sections: Wireless; Internet and Phone; and U-verse. Each has it's own login system. One use sequential IDs for logins, one usernames and the other email addresses. I spent ages fighting the login and ID recovery system before I found out my DSL connection came under "U-verse" and not "Internet"…

Four sections. The iPad plan has its own login hidden off to the side.

Re: AT&T's Rube Golbergian Web Form

#56

Post by jeffclune »

I noticed a surge in traffic to EndlessForms.com and realized it was coming from this post. Thanks to Joel for mentioning our site[1]! For those of you that don't know what I am talking about, see Joel's comment on the original post where he recommends EndlessForms.com, where you can design objects with evolution and 3D print them. Thanks all for checking it out.

[1] http://endlessforms.com

Re: AT&T's Rube Golbergian Web Form

#57

Post by dasil003 »

attempthrowaway wrote: post #24

I work for AT&T. I have an obligation to inform you that what I say doesn't represent their official blahblah whatever. You should know this isn't an on-message marketing communique. AT&T, the company that created Unix and C, could be said to no longer exist, or more correctly could be said to be a different company than the one now called by that name. A little (abridged, simplified) history: AT&T, you may remember,…

Well at least they're dogfooding.

Re: AT&T's Rube Golbergian Web Form

#58

Post by bane »

attempthrowaway wrote: post #24

I work for AT&T. I have an obligation to inform you that what I say doesn't represent their official blahblah whatever. You should know this isn't an on-message marketing communique. AT&T, the company that created Unix and C, could be said to no longer exist, or more correctly could be said to be a different company than the one now called by that name. A little (abridged, simplified) history: AT&T, you may remember,…

funny, we're talking about almost the same thing here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2695521

Re: AT&T's Rube Golbergian Web Form

#59

Post by dimarco »

melling wrote: post #21

So, you must have had IE6 or IE7? As much as I hate being forced to run any particular browser, one less machines running these old browsers is a good thing.

Typically, "upgrade your browser" techniques are welcomed in HN. Google drops support for IE6, then IE7 - smiles all around. Apps block off IE6 - "good for them".

AT&T does something similar and it's met with frustration?

Requiring IE* should be frowned upon. But anything that says "upgrade from IE6", in end-user land, is probably a good thing.

Re: AT&T's Rube Golbergian Web Form

#60

Post by jonah »

So what I want to know is whether the ActiveX control is actually doing anything necessary [1] to automate the install process. Is it telnetting to the modem or something like that?

Other commenters mentioned you can call them to activate your account. What info do you have to give them that's not collectible via a web form?

[1] I'm assuming the whole ActiveX thing is to push a download of IE8 because the code whatever tool they used to build the signup form only works in IE8. But it just boggles.

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