Niblets

No Hyphens, Please

Originally Posted Tuesday, 21 August 2018 at 05:08 PM
Updated Tuesday, 21 August 2018 at 05:39 PM

Girl filling out a information form on a laptop computer.
Oh, man, are we annoyed by lazy or minimally competent programmers.

You begin to fill out an on-line form, and, alongside the space for your phone number, is this instruction: "No hyphens." Or, worse still, that instruction doesn't appear until the form has denied your attempt to enter your phone number in the standard way: 816-472-7727.

[Dirty word!]

How hard is it to add a line of code that allows the computer to figure out whether there are hyphens, and, if they're there, delete them before passing the number on to the application?

The same is true of other standard, and (by most thinking people) expected, entries.

Can't the programmers figure out how to deal with the hyphen in ZIP+4 (64131-3264) entries? How about the apostrophe in a Queen's Place address? Does the proper name O'Connell give their computer fits?

Or, if there's a character box (you know, like three adjacent boxes for your Social Security number), some programmers smartly allow the cursor to jump to the next box once the current entry is complete. Others require the increasingly annoyed user to take the extra -- the unnecessarily extra -- step of hitting the tab key or advancing the cursor manually before typing the next character.

Then there's the blank you're to fill when you must choose a new password. In many cases, you're only given the instruction to enter a password, and then enter it again. (Okay, we get that. You want to avoid losing all the data because of an inadvertent typo.) Anyway, you hit "Enter," and voila! There's now a message telling you that you didn't read their minds concerning how long the password may/must be and other required/disallowed characteristics, like caps/lower case, numbers, and, if they allow special characters, which ones are acceptable and which must be avoided.

Is it that hard to use a few electrons -- and a bit of programmer planning -- to give the user those instructions before he begins typing?

These lazy or unthinking programmers have no concept of the thousands (millions?) of unnecessary extra keystrokes they're demanding. Nor how they're affecting users' blood pressure.

About The Author

Richard B. Barger, ABC, APR

Richard B. Barger, ABC, APR, is well-positioned as CornerBarPR's Chief Curmudgeon; he's our version of Andy Rooney -- loves words, particularly loves to complain about idiocy.

In his spare time, Rich runs the inventively named Barger Consulting, where he conducts strategic communications planning and research, and gives people advice whether they want it or not.

Through the years, Rich has tricked unsuspecting folks into giving him positions as managing editor of the public relations division of a 180-person agency, and as a wire service editor, an economic analyst, a federal investigator, and, bless his little muddy boots, a farmer. Really. He fancies himself a pretty fair country editor and at one time was famous among about half a dozen people as "The Voice of IABC."

At various points in what passes for a career, he's done time as a member of IABC, PRSA, and NSPRA, as well as the Gifted Association of Missouri, the University of Missouri Alumni Association, the Council of Better Business Bureaus (as a Senior Arbitrator), and a handful of church choirs.

Known as "Boom-Boom Barger" in Marching Mizzou, Rich refuses to answer the phone during University of Missouri football or basketball games, plays a hard-edged game of bridge, and is married to a woman he doesn't like to talk about much, because she's smarter and much nicer than he is.

Barger's motto: "Some mistakes are too much fun to make only once."