Dear Web Developers

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I am not you. I do not live your life. Just because something is perfectly normal to you and everyone you know please do not assume that it is so for everyone.

Just because you skipped that boring lecture on parsing regular expressions please do not tell me that my email address is undeliverable:

Pop up window claiming email address is undeliverable with blurred address

I would guess this email address was deliverable when you were still in nappies.

I, along with eight million other people across England and Wales, do not have a passport so please avoid requirements such as…

Web form requesting a name as it appears in your passport

Whilst fairly trivial but annoying examples they are symptomatic of a trend which is resulting in people not getting housing or employment because they do not fit neatly into some arbitrary but erroneous requirements…. Dear Estate Agents, I can live perfectly comfortably on one third of the income you assume I need to rent a property.

Worryingly such problems reach right to the top; a Tory MP in today’s Times complaining about the “hordes of twentysomethings with an Excel spreadsheet”.

A Clipping from The Times

From there it is but a few steps to the bonfire of red tape madness.

Update:

It transpires that the undeliverable email problem was caused by the company using some bodgers, rather than developers, to create their site and they are paying for the loqate verification services – which clearly do not work.

icePad

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It has been very chilly lately but it is returning to a normal temperature today – which should please the iPad…

iPad screen reporting that charging is paused due to cold temperature.

The Vanquis App Disaster

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It is not clear what has happened with the Vanquis app and they are certainly not going to admit to anything untoward. I have an image of a disgruntled employee handing in their notice and hitting the delete button on the way out. Whatever it is it is amusing to sit back and watch; but I have a zero balance – it will be considerably less amusing and more frustrating for users who actually need to use the app to make payments etc.

The average banking type app gets four or five reviews a day. The Vanquis app gets around fifty five star reviews every day. These are clearly fake reviews and are there to drown out the one star reviews from frustrated users. Several of the one star actual users have commented on the fake reviews and ask that they be reported to Apple. I have done so but what Apple could or would do remains to be seen. Who would not take time out of their day to say something was “Easy to use”?

Fake five star reviews of the Vanquis app

Well Mr Christopher Johnson (or the less than BrillentAJ) for one and anyone else who was not be paid to do so. Of course there will be the inevitable glitch and user 260446 failed to read the instructions and gave their “Easy to use” review a one star rating.

Mostly real one star reviews of the Vanquis app.

Although the app (and web site) was broken before the recent update to iOS 16 many users noticed it after updating and so attributed the malfunctioning to the iOS update but there is a wave of frustrated users on Android devices too which suggests the problem is systemic at the Vanquis end rather than on individual devices.

Android reviews of the Vanquis app

But, let us whisper it, the Internet was not designed to do any of this stuff and so you have layers of complexity added to it to give the illusion of usability and security when a peak behind the curtain reveals the whole thing is cobbled together with bits of string and blu-tack and can start to fall apart at any moment. That message from your bank about their online services not being available overnight due to important maintenance should say “we have found yet another hole large enough to drive a bus through and are frantically trying to patch it before anyone notices”.

At least it is not as bad as all the crypto/web 3 nonsense. Even Safe Hands Sunak could not resist joining the imbecilic gold rush.

Call me an ageing cynic but…

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When most banking/credit card apps get four or five reviews a day one might raise a querying eyebrow when the Vanquis app gains 40 5 star reviews in one day.

Apparently it is very easy to use. Of course these reviews are definitely not an attempt to bury all the one star reviews from actual users after the developers messed up. 🧐

Excluded by the defaults

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While everyone is pushing for their rights as an individual can I stake a claim for those of us who do not have a passport? There seems to be an assumption that everyone has a passport.

The 2011 census recorded nearly nine million people in England who did not have a passport.

One could just ignore the prompt and type in your first name but it is a growing problem that is setting a default which results in people not getting housing or employment because they are unable to tick the boxes and meet some arbitrarily imposed requirement.