I’ve been shopping for a new iPhone, and headed over to the AT&T site to check out my options. I was surprised at how many basic Usability mistakes I found in just a few minutes of surfing around. Obviously they’ve spent some money (or at least time) on design, as the graphics are nice, and they have some helpful features (such as inline filtering of phone listings by style/manufacturer/etc). And given that the iPhone is the only AT&T product (that I’m aware of) that is only sold in stores, I’m not surprised that the website may not have been designed to handle this case.

Poor Messaging

So, first I headed over to att.com to check out the deals. Because the initial page is intended for you to choose whether you want to shop for Wireless, Home, or other types of services, I was happy to see an ad for the iPhone listed somewhat prominently at the bottom of the page. So I clicked on the iPhone ad, and was taken to an informational page about the iPhone. After reading lots of good information, I clicked on the big “find yours today” button to try to buy one. I was confused because this took me to a “store finder”, rather than allowing me to buy online. Now I know you can’t buy one online, but there was no messaging regarding this on any of the pages I visited so far. So I decided I should switch to the “shop” section of the site to try to price the iPhone there.

In the “shop” section you’ve got the option to start shopping by either plan, phone, services, accessories, etc. Each of these options leads to a nice “wizard” style walkthrough of the remaining options related to your initial choice.

So I clicked on Phones to start with to see what the iPhone costs. A nice listing is provided, although it is very slow to load even when showing only 25 phones at a time. I appreciated the style/manufacturing filtering on the left side, however this was also slow to load and didn’t finish until all 25 phones were loaded. I headed over to the filter to find Apple, and was surprised that it was missing from the manufacturers list. Well, maybe the iPhone was considered rebranded as “AT&T” so I chose that, and still didn’t find any iPhone. At this point, i realized (or remembered) that iPhones weren’t sold online. I’d probably read this months ago, but I wasn’t really thinking about this since I’m a heavy internet shopper (and pricer) and usually expect to find everything I need online. And I’m sure there’s many people who didn’t keep up with iPhone news who could have benefited from some messaging here.

My suggestion for this case would be for AT&T to provide clear messaging stating that iPhones are only available in stores. (Just out of curiosity, I checked out Apple.com and as expected, Apple’s messaging was much cleaner, clearly stating that iPhones were only available in Apple/AT&T stores.) In addition, I would have still listed the product in the phone listings, with a link (and similar messaging) to the Store Finder. I would even include the price since many people like myself do shopping research online before heading into the store. In addition, I’d probably allow customers to choose the iPhone and continue through the wizard (with the proper messaging) up until checkout so they can price the related plans. Especially because the plans are tied to the phones (ie: you have to buy a specific iPhone data plan) and I wanted to price the hold package without having to drive to a store.

User Preferences and Passive Defaults

So at this point, I headed over to the plans section to try to price one out. I remembered by the end that iPhone has its own special data plans, but I didn’t remember at the time. So I clicked on “Plans”, chose “Individual Plans” and was asked for my zip code. I’m not 100% convinced that your zip code has any effect on the price, but I will give AT&T a bit of leeway on this one. The following page presented me with a list of plans, and a prominent box near the top for the “Coverage Viewer” to see the map of coverage near you. Surprisingly, this box asked for my zip code again! Didn’t I just enter it? Couldn’t they just give me a link to the Coverage Map for the zip code I just entered? That would clearly be the obvious default choice, and if the customer wanted to look at another zip code you could give them a “Choose another location” option. Granted, I was here to look at prices, but the prominent zip code box hit my eyes first.

Anyway, I shopped around a bit more, comparing family plans and individual plans, and after realizing I couldn’t get my iPhone or data plan pricing, I gave up. I’ve also got some issues with the “Shopping Cart” that constantly pops up in front of the site as you progress (which has some logic problems and confusing error messaging) but that’s a story for another article.

We ended up having to call in to AT&T to get our plans/phones upgraded, and this turned into a 4 hour ordeal with AT&T Customer Service after getting disconnected and having to restart the process many times. I guess we should’ve called from non AT&T phones!

Usability Lessons Learned

• Clear Error/Exception Messaging: When your users do something wrong, or when a component of your site works differently that the rest, make sure you provide clear messaging. This messaging should be in simple terms from the customer’s viewpoint (rather than a technical error message). Do some research with your users to determine what they expect, and if your business requirements can’t meet those expectations at least provide messaging explaining why.

• User Preferences and Passive Defaults: Remember any preference (such as their zip code) that your user provides, and don’t make them enter it more than once. Use this preference to determine “passive defaults” (such as automatically centering the Coverage Map on the previously entered zip code), and give the user to option to override any default you’ve chosen for them.