Usability 101: How not to conduct a poll (CNN)

October 3rd, 2008
By Noah (asides, usability)

Just a fun little example of how even the big guys can still screw things up royally. This morning, CNN posted a little widget that displayed various grades for both Biden and Palin from the Vice Presidential Debate last night. At the bottom of the widget was an area for you to select your own grade for a particular candidate and a “Next” button to submit and view the results.

Seems simple enough. The problem was that if you (like myself) simply want to skip giving your own grade and just view the results, something unexpected happens. By clicking “Next” without selecting a grade, you automatically submit a grade of F!

Oops! At the time of taking this screenshot early this morning, over 16,000 visitors had voted. How many of them had accidentally graded someone with an F? Both candidates had an average grade of D, which leads me to believe that a significant number of people simply clicked next.

While I’m sure this gaffe is the result of rushing to put together a widget, it isn’t like the debates were a surprise. As an update, I’ve noticed that CNN has now corrected the problem by requiring the user to either select a grade before the “Next” button becomes active, or clicking a “View results” link which does not auto-select a grade in the process.



2 Responses

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