Have you ever felt like you’re clicking and clicking, but the form just won’t submit? Like the servers are playing dead, especially when you have an important online application to send? Yeah, I think most of us have been there. We usually brush it off, thinking, “It’s not a big deal; I won’t be using this site again anyway.”
But here’s the thing: you’re not the only one facing these problems. These sites and applications are meant to be user-friendly portals, the one-stop shop for submitting forms and applications. So, they have to work properly.
Recently, I was helping someone fill out a university application form through their online portal. And let me tell you, that portal was not playing nice. Click, wait, wait some more, get an error message, repeat. This went on for days, and the final submission date was practically breathing down our necks.
In tech terms, the servers probably weren’t equipped to handle the traffic, or maybe the site was drowning in cache with no auto-clean system in place. Whatever the reason, it was a mess. Wrong redirects, failed requests, and a whole lot of confusion.
It begs the question: what’s the point of an online portal if it can’t handle user requests due to bad design and development? Or was it just a server error? Let’s dive deeper into my experience.
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Registration Roadblocks
The user registration process was the most annoying part. The person I was helping accidentally created their account twice with the same details (they were confused as to why the form wasn’t moving forward). Now, should a portal allow the same user to create multiple accounts with the same email, phone number, and government ID?
And here’s the kicker: the second time they registered, the system decided to throw an “incorrect login credentials” error. They just created the account! How could they possibly enter the wrong credentials? As a UX designer, I was already cringing at the bad design and user flow, and now this server and database issue from the backend was just the cherry on top.
I tried resetting the password, and after a few tries (thanks to the unresponsive server), it worked. They asked me to set the same password so they could remember it easily, and I did. But guess what? The portal still showed invalid credentials. At this point, I was ready to throw my laptop out the window.
Then it hit me: maybe the data was overlapping, and the user ID (application number) was changing with each account creation, but the password remained the same. And bam! I was right. As soon as I reset the password to something completely new, we were in. I’m no backend expert, but if anyone can explain this in the comments, please do!
The Never-Ending Form:
Every time you do something on this portal, you have to verify with a captcha and OTP. Nothing wrong with that in principle, but when the servers are acting up, you have to enter those things so many times that it starts to feel like part of the form itself.
Anyway, I managed to open the application, and they divided the form into multiple pages: contact, personal details, educational details, etc. So, you fill one page, click “Next,” and it should save and take you to the next page, right? Wrong. Here, you click “Save and Next,” it shows a loading animation, then a pop-up saying the details are saved… and you’re still on the same page.
Seriously, who designed this? After all that effort, it just dumps you back where you started. It was infuriating.
We even looked online for solutions. People suggested clearing browser history, using a specific browser… I mean, come on! The motive behind those tactics was probably to clear the cache, but still. In the end, I had to clear the cache every time I faced a server issue. After two days of struggling, we finally managed to finish the form.
Design Inconsistencies:
One more thing that really stood out was the portal’s inconsistent design. They had three different page styles! Sometimes the captcha was after the message header, and sometimes under it. Sometimes it was in the center of the screen, sometimes on the left. Important messages were shoved in the bottom left corner, practically hidden from view.
I might sound like I’m ranting, but what can I do? I work in UX, and this was a hellish experience. I never want to visit that site again. The worst part? The student’s family was almost ready to give up, saying, “If it doesn’t work, we’ll try to get you in some other way.” How ridiculous is it that portal issues could prevent a student from attending university?
So, what could they have done better? For starters, they could have given a specific time window for submissions if the servers were overloaded or at least put up a message saying they were experiencing technical difficulties. And if the form was having issues so close to the deadline, why not provide a downloadable version and let people upload it? That way, students wouldn’t miss out because of silly website problems.
This whole ordeal was a stark reminder that good UX is crucial, especially in high-stakes situations. Hopefully, by sharing my experience, I can help prevent others from suffering the same fate.
