S**ttyBank

Last night, I finished a frustrating session with an "industry best" website of one of the largest US banks in the world. The account being a "Non-Resident Indian Account" and with me, a very infrequent visitor, (I access the account probably once a year, usually to deposit money) I had long since lost my cryptic password assigned by the bank and the even more cryptic PIN number made up of meaningless letters and numbers.

After more than an hour of running from pillar to post, I gave up. I do not know if this website represents the best of Indian user interface design or if the development team was having a bad day. In any case, working for a multinational Mega-Bank, I suspect, would attract the best programming talent in India unless the bank took the approach of the US Federal Government : Lowest Bidder.

Some of the user interface design practices that confounded me:

1. Profuse use of acronyms that may mean something to the bank staff but might as well be Greek or Latin to the rest of us. The difference between IPIN, TPIN and WPIN, who's to know? And what about IVRS? The acronym jungle out there would make Indian Railways proud from my fond memories of SBC as Bangalore City and BNC as Bangalore Cantonment.

2. Circular logic and use of the broken record technique requesting a PIN for every transaction including "Read my lips, I have lost my PIN"; I felt like a rat going through a maze and passing the same point again and again.

3. And worst of all - the need for a login to register a complaint when the complaint itself is "I cannot log on because I have not the foggiest idea where I have kept my materials other than the debit and ATM cards I have in my pocket."

4. With this major bank I have several thousands of dollars in three accounts. The login that had the selection for a Banking relationship refused to recognize my existence. As far as the bank is concerned the relationship is with a customer and not an account, but rather through an account.

5. When I tried to fill out a complaint form, the detail section would not let me type in anything at all. There was a cryptic message exhorting me not to use "special characters" and an "Enter" key. In this day and age... Interestingly, my devious mind managed to paste my complaint into the text field but I could not submit my complaint. It reminded me of earlier days in a Bangalore Transport Bus which had a complaint box without a bottom.
Based on the user interface, my first inclination was to withdraw all my money and go someplace else, but where?

It got me thinking - turning the gun on our profession. Are we as software developers and architects of the user experience passing on this frustrating experience to end users as we stand on the podium and receive "Best Practice" awards? Are Indian customers more tolerant of pain than the American banking client? Should we be demanding more from our banks? Should the executives who sponsor these websites be more accountable to customers, especially in multinational banks? In India, where US banks are trying to establish a presence, it's probably time to institute a clearing house for complaints just to set the baseline for services before a bank is allowed to do business. And lastly, when posed problems with websites, do we blame the victim instead of putting the burden on the programmer, recognizing that the primary purpose of the website is to get the customer in and out, with work complete and a satisfied smile..