21–30 of 82 posts
If they require a phone number for activation, that's straight up annoying to everyone, and a terrible way to make money. If they just ask for the number, you can enter a fake, no harm, no foul
According to some brief research, it looks like somewhere around 0.33% of Americans under 85 are deaf, and around 4% are hard of hearing [1]. I find it preposterous to optimize for that small section of the user population at the expense of the overwhelming number of our users who tell us that phone is their preferred method of contact. We're probably going to continue asking for a phone number, because many users wo…
What service are you running where the "overwhelming number of [y]our users" tell you that phone is their preferred method of contact? As I wrote on the blog, email allows me to: - respond when it’s convenient for me. - keep most of my attention on what I’m doing. - archive and share the correspondence easily. - filter content I don’t want to hear anymore. - remain anonymous. - make careful, researched, edited respon…
Contrarians, please remember that, regardless of your opinion or business size, you are required by federal law (ADA of 1990) to make your services accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing. For some great examples, scroll down to "Ten Small Business Mistakes" on this page - http://www.ada.gov/videogallery.htm
There are so many problems with telephones as contact. They of course work by voice. They are synchronous, and so require timing. They are very expensive. They don't internationalize well. They are a link to a lot of personal information. I don't mind being asked for a phone number, so long as it's optional. I will not sign up for any service where my only means of contact is by phone (though I do permit "I physicall…
I liked the one comment in the article where the guy recommended a public service that gave the deaf a real phone number which just contained a recording informing callers that the person was deaf. That way they could enter a real phone number of forms that insisted on one. I don't know anyone at Twilio but if they want to perform a public service and gets lots of karma it wouldn't be a bad thing to go do.
http://spottedsun.com/stop-asking-me-for-my-phone-number/#co...
I liked the one comment in the article where the guy recommended a public service that gave the deaf a real phone number which just contained a recording informing callers that the person was deaf. That way they could enter a real phone number of forms that insisted on one. I don't know anyone at Twilio but if they want to perform a public service and gets lots of karma it wouldn't be a bad thing to go do.
I will give anyone here that wants to do this a boat load of Twilio credit to get started. Email me jsheehan@twilio.com
I liked the one comment in the article where the guy recommended a public service that gave the deaf a real phone number which just contained a recording informing callers that the person was deaf. That way they could enter a real phone number of forms that insisted on one. I don't know anyone at Twilio but if they want to perform a public service and gets lots of karma it wouldn't be a bad thing to go do.
I will give anyone here that wants to do this a boat load of Twilio credit to get started. Email me jsheehan@twilio.com
According to some brief research, it looks like somewhere around 0.33% of Americans under 85 are deaf, and around 4% are hard of hearing [1]. I find it preposterous to optimize for that small section of the user population at the expense of the overwhelming number of our users who tell us that phone is their preferred method of contact. We're probably going to continue asking for a phone number, because many users wo…
What service are you running where the "overwhelming number of [y]our users" tell you that phone is their preferred method of contact? As I wrote on the blog, email allows me to: - respond when it’s convenient for me. - keep most of my attention on what I’m doing. - archive and share the correspondence easily. - filter content I don’t want to hear anymore. - remain anonymous. - make careful, researched, edited respon…
When you talk on the phone, you have someone who's listening to you right now, and if they misunderstand you, you can re-explain. If they continue to be unhelpful, you can talk to a supervisor.
Email, on the other hand, seems to go into a queue, which is responded to with one of a variety of boilerplate responses, most of which aren't really quite to the point. Yeah, I can respond when it's convenient to me, but so can they, causing a simple misunderstanding to require multiple round trips of idiocy lasting several days.