As a recovering IT guy, I couldn’t resist.
Sunday morning I linked to HealthCare.gov …. mostly, I just wanted to see if the site was up & alive.
The landing page populated quickly.
So, I decided to play the “find a glitch” game … the kinda thing I’d do when IT teams would come to demo a new system for me.
It took less than 5 seconds … and I didn’t have to leave the home page
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Here’s what I did.
I certainly didn’t want to apply for anything, so I just ran the cursor over the “See plans in your area” section of the landing page.
Note that the cursor turned into a hand, indicating a live hyperlink.
I clicked and nothing happened,
Clicked again, nothing happened.
Then I clicked the “See plans now” and got linked to a process for taking a peek at plans.
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In tech terms, the hyperlink “hotspot” is wrong … either the apparent link where I originally clicked should be removed … or a single hotspot should extend over the entire “See plans” wording.
OK, I concede that this is a minor glitch.
But, it’s like the drill sergeant checking the back of shoes during inspections – figuring that if the backs are polished, so are the fronts.
Makes me wonder: Is anybody really testing this stuff?
I warn students: Make sure that the first slide in your pitch is error free – no typos, no arithmetic errors, etc. – otherwise, your credibility gets tarnished right out of the blocks.
That applies to web site landing pages, too.
I wonder how many folks will click like I did and conclude that they still can’t shop plans without registering?
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Update
Apparently the glitch was fixed overnite … there is a revised landing page this morning.
Which raises another question: how will site returnees react when the sit looks different each time they visit?
Gotta cause some folks some angst re: security issues.
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