Fighting with a web page

The subtitle: Use your Javascript powers for good, not for evil!

So I'm about to upgrade my computer, and I was out pricing parts. I encountered an incredibly annoying feature at Dealtime.com that seemed designed to irritate me. [03/24/2004 - Link removed - search
is completely different]

The refine form is not very refinedI wanted to blank out the prices to indicate I didn't care, for the moment, about the price, but wanted to focus on other criteria. But the page helpfully used Javascript to substitute some values, presumably defaults for "everything."

Why not just leave the form fields blank?


Posted by Chad Lundgren on Thursday, October 31, 2002 (Link)

Comments

Posted by dan Thursday, October 31, 2002 at 11:59 PM

user anticipation?

Posted by Bobo the Clown Friday, November 1, 2002 at 09:56 AM

The javascript may have annoyed or temporarily confused you, but it did not fight you. How did it prevent you from conducting your search? Did you repeatedly empty the form values, having them auto-refilled, and emptying them again in a javascript struggle for supremacy?

Posted by Chad Lundgren Friday, November 1, 2002 at 01:27 PM

Yes, "Bobo", I did fight with the Javascript. Only a couple of times before I came to my senses, but it was still vexing.

Posted by Roslee Sunday, November 3, 2002 at 07:43 AM

I may not understand all that you were talking about...to me java is still a "hip" word for coffee. However, I hate it when that happens, anyway. There are far too many "forms" out there that are very difficult to fill out.

Posted by Bobo the Clown Sunday, November 3, 2002 at 11:54 AM

OK, "Chad," might I point out that your search was still conducted according to your wishes? Perhaps the javascript places default values into the form to *help* the user by being very clear what range the user is searching. Eh?

Posted by Paul Friday, March 14, 2003 at 07:44 AM

The prices that are automatically filled in are the lowest and highest prices in the product category. They do not limit your selections at all unless you edit them to a more constrained range. We found that people liked seeing what the min and max values were so we automatically put them in the form boxes for the user to edit if s/he choses.

-- DealTime's Product Manager