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ScheduleOnce doesn't think much of their users

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18 Jan 2008

Web Worker Daily linked to ScheduleOnce (no link for now, you’ll see why in a moment), a service that helps nail down a good meeting time for far flung workers.

Says WWD...

ScheduleOnce bills itself as “a dead simple Web 2.0 service for scheduling any meeting, anytime, anywhere.” Create a meeting, suggest some times, invite people, and they can use its slick interface to show which times are good for them, until everyone narrows in on a final meeting time. Selling points include a zero-registration workflow and a worldwide database that adjusts everything for local time and daylight savings.

Sounded nifty—scheduling is a pain and one of the only things Outlook/Exchange is truly useful for. So I clicked over, only to have my browser taken over. It moved. It resized. It showed the brochure-ware home page.

The company thinks so little of their users that they just take their browsers. Who cares what size I wanted to browse at? Their web site is so important it must be seen full screen.

What a bunch of crap. I went from interested to annoyed in about two seconds.

Want to see for yourself? ScheduleOnce sucks.

Mark Dixon
January 19, 2008 10:32 AM

Plus, they use poor grammar right on the front page. It should be "both I and my invitees can suggest times," not "me and my invitees."

Adrian Kelly
January 23, 2008 7:45 AM

I agree. Nothing winds visitors up more than interfering with the viewers browsing / navigation. It's just bad practice. Just started using your 'rounded corners' so many thanks. AK

Yael
January 24, 2008 11:24 AM

Resize issue is fixed, I hope you'll enjoy using Scheduleonce.

naga
January 29, 2008 1:39 PM

So basically, you came to the conclusion that ScheduleOnce sucks because you did not agree with a few lines of javascript code that can easily be removed and that don't even affect the service/product itself one bit? You have a pretty interesting method of looking at sites and rating them. Pretty interesting how you tagged this article though.

Adam Kalsey
January 29, 2008 4:25 PM

Naga: The point is that taking over my browser and disregarding how I want to look at web sites shows a lack of care about users. It may not affect the use of the product, but it's illuminating that a company disregards the preferences of people who aren't even yet a customer. You can't start annoying people the moment the stop by.

Naga
January 30, 2008 4:39 AM

I agree Adam, that javascript code is pretty useless, annoying and maybe "shows a lack of care about users". But claiming that the ScheduleOnce itself "sucks" only because of this is pretty ignorant. Probably the makers of the product thought that resizing your window would be a nice feature and now that you posted your "insight" they removed it because they obviously do care about the possible customers and visitors.

This discussion has been closed.

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