August 01, 2006
Earlier today, as I was typing a comment in our internal issuing-tracking system, I hit backspace to correct a typo. WHAM! I go back to the previous page, and my long-winded comment is gone. Apparently I somehow left the context of the text area (did I tab, or spuriously click, or??), which causes backspace to act as a hotkey for "Back". The web browser was not very forgiving of my mistake.

Are your IVR applications forgiving? They should be.

I can think of one great example. When I call my cell phone provider's voicemail system, and I delete a message, I am immediately given the option "To undelete this message, press 1." If I am checking my voicemails on the go and accidentally hit the 7 key (delete) instead of what I meant to do, this is a lifesaver!

I can also think of many calls (I won't name companies) where I've ended up in some part of the app where I was destined to hear a message and be disconnected. What if I got there by mistake? What if I would prefer to leave a message? Forgive me for not using the app in the way you had forecasted. If I feel that it's impossible to make mistakes while in your app, I probably won't mind using it again.

Posted by Vance