The one-word title of this post might surprise you, or the reason for it, anyway. “OH” No, it’s not an exclamation of surprise as, say, when some stranger accidentally walks into the bathroom while you’re taking a shower. It’s not one of those words one says when told of something they hadn’t known before, i.e. “What is idential about Stevie Wonder and the Cleveland Browns? Neither of them has ever seen a Super Bowl.” Oh.
And no, it is not the first word in a Christmas carol, nor that of the opening song of the musical “Oklahoma” which boasts about beautiful mornings, nor of the Star Spangled Banner.
What it is, at least to me, is annoying as hell. It all has to do with where I live. Ohio—or the official, government-approved abbreviation for Ohio. “OH”
I’ve made it my hom there for more than two decades. I was born in IL, lived in NY, GA, and CA. My daughter and granddaughter are in CO, my son resides in NC. Those shortened identifiers annoy me, too. But not nearly as much as OH.
Here’s why: I buy things online sometimes. Or I sign petitions. Or I put my email addy on lists so I can be notified of things important. When I do, I type in my name. It’s not as hard to pronounce as, say, the director of this year’s best film, “The Artist,” nor is it difficult to type, as I’ve been doing it all my life. I also type my address with relative ease, especially the name of the town in which I reside; that’s a slam-dunk, only four letters. And then it gets truly aggravating.
Because where it says STATE, rather than typing OH, I have to click on a list that stretches out to fifty states—and of course Ohio, being closer to the end of the list, requires me to scroll down and THEN click. Three keyboard movements instead of one, and they take up several seconds longer. Why do they ask us to type everything else but then have to CLICK ON the abbreviation of our state? Are most of us too stupid to KNOW the abbreviation? I mean KNOW it, without having to stop and think about it? Are we too lazy to type two lousy letters? They make us type everything else; why don’t they just LEAVE US ALONE when they want to know in which state we reside?
It bugs me every day. I swear, I’d write a letter to someone and complain about it. But if I did—-I’d have to scroll down and click OH again. And I’m damned if I’ll do THAT!
Making users scroll through a drop-down list of state abbreviations, rather than typing in two letters, is simply bad web design and has been known to be bad design since the early days of the web. Dr. Jakob Nielsen, arguably the world’s preeminent expert on web usability, has been criticizing it since the late 90′s! (Here’s an article form 2000: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20001112.html). In a survey he did in 2007 he found 49 out of 50 web sites still committed this design error (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/annoyances.html).
I can only conclude that the practice persists out of laziness and habit on the part of web designers.
Re your comments about “OH”….If I am not mistaken when that happens to me … I hit O and the default is OH and a tab solves the problem……Hope this is helpful…..I am also looking for a copy of Snake Oil, Seeing the Elephant, Lemon Chicken that is not signed….any possibilities??? Thanks Jp
Hi, Jack – re the Saxon books you mentioned are now being prepared as ebooks to be downloaded. They were published many years ago, and I doubt if anyone has hard copies. The ones that are selling via the Internet are fairly expensive. I DO have a few copies here (not Lemon Chicken Jones but the other two) I can sell. Check the prices listed on my website and email me if you’re interested. Thanks. lr