buy-something team mailing list archive

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Today, for the first time, I successfully completed the software
purchase process from start to finish.

It's still ugly and impolite. This is important. We who are involved in
this project are, justifiably, impressed at all the moving parts we have
managed to plug together. But the simple truth is that
*no-one outside the company will be*. They are used to an Internet where
Amazon, iTunes, and tens of thousands of other stores sell things
elegantly and (mostly) without fuss, and we'll be compared to them.

In e-commerce, people have few ways to judge whether to trust a
storefront with their money: these include branding, aesthetics,
understandability, and responsiveness. We're making progress, but for
all of these things we have a *lot* to fix.

Screencast:
<http://people.canonical.com/~mpt/usc-purchase-2010-09-13.ogv>
(It doesn't play in Chromium for me, but does in Firefox.)

This screencast is longer than usual, because I tried four things:
1.  what happens if you choose "Reinstall Previous Purchases" out of
    curiosity
2.  purchasing Fluendo DVD Player
3.  removing the purchased item
4.  reinstalling the purchase using "Reinstall Previous Purchases".

Seven of the problems I found last time have been fixed:
>...
> 0:39  "Connecting to payment service..." is big and clunky.
>       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/622727>
>...
> 1:53  The payment page layout is wonky.
>       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/625274>
>...
> 2:50  The terms of service window can now be scrolled and closed, but
>       it is still stuck underneath the payments window.
>       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/625398>
>...
> 3:27  If you make an error near the bottom of the payment form, you're
>       returned to the top of the form with no visible explanation.
>       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/625405>
>...
> 3:56  An authentication alert appears, bewilderingly asking me "To
>       change repository settings". (To be fair, I did write that
>       string, but I wasn't expecting it to show up in this context.)
>       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/631619>
>
> 4:08  An "In Progress" item appears briefly, but the software item
>       screen continues saying "Installing purchase..." indefinitely.
>
> 4:59  The item is not installed.

These are the problems I encountered this time (13 of them are new):

0:20  The "Connect to Ubuntu Software Center Store" dialog says "Connect
      to Ubuntu Software Center Store", "Connect to Ubuntu Software
      Center Store" a second time, and then "Ubuntu Software Centre",
      apparently to demonstrate that we can spell it two ways. But
      nowhere does it explain why the dialog is asking me to sign in.
      <http://launchpad.net/bugs/624097>

0:20  The "Connect to Ubuntu Software Center Store" dialog does not
      focus the first field by default.
      <http://launchpad.net/bugs/637205>

0:29  Signing in displays an error: "Required argument 'password' (pos
      2) not found".
      <http://launchpad.net/bugs/634465>

0:47  The item for purchase has no description, screenshot, version,
      license, or updates information.
      <http://launchpad.net/bugs/625254>

0:51  The purchase process opens in a separate window.
      <http://launchpad.net/bugs/618817>

0:51  The Ubuntu Single Sign On screen refers to "Software Center"
      instead of "Ubuntu Software Center".
      <http://launchpad.net/bugs/631567>

1:00  Clicking "Cancel" results in a great white empty window with the
      unhelpful message "OpenID failed".
      <http://launchpad.net/bugs/637231>

1:19  The Ubuntu Single Sign On screen has a missing image next to
      "Choose your language".
      <http://launchpad.net/bugs/635028>

1:28  The payment screen looks like a Web page and wastes a lot of
      space.
      <http://launchpad.net/bugs/637451>

1:30  "Quantity" and "Total" are shown, when it's impossible to buy more
      than one thing at a time.
      <http://launchpad.net/bugs/625261>

2:40  The "I agree to the Terms of Service" checkbox label is in the
      wrong place.
      <http://launchpad.net/bugs/637266>

2:45  The supposed terms of service are actually a Web page about
      "www.blah.net Spam Filtering".
      <http://launchpad.net/bugs/625389>

3:18  If left unchecked, the terms of service checkbox has the error
      message "This field is required".
      <http://launchpad.net/bugs/637292>

3:35  The payment confirmation screen refers to my "country code" rather
      than my country.
      <http://launchpad.net/bugs/625415>

3:46  The payment progress is shown in unattractive unstyled unmoving
      HTML.
      <http://launchpad.net/bugs/632499>

3:48  The text says "Launchpad subscription created successfully".

4:01  After authenticating, the software item screen says "Installing
      purchase...", but it is 42 seconds until a progress bar appears
      next to it. (This bug is obscured in the screencast by a missing
      keyframe.)
      <http://launchpad.net/bugs/637377>

4:13  In "In Progress", the purchase installation has no icon or name.
      <http://launchpad.net/bugs/637394>

4:27  (A non-purchasing bug. <http://launchpad.net/bugs/637411>)

5:03  The description of Fluendo DVD Player is badly written
      (e.g. "reproduce DVD", "Linux/Unix", and no fewer than *eight*
      occurrences of the nonsense-word "support") and badly formatted.
      (E-mailed to Roz Strachan and Brian Thomason to fix. Brian has
      already fixed the formatting.)

5:13  When installation is finished, the launch location does not show
      up like it does for other installed items.
      <http://launchpad.net/bugs/637452>

5:44  (A non-purchasing bug. <http://launchpad.net/bugs/625443>)

6:15  After choosing "Reinstall Previous Purchases" and entering Ubuntu
      Single Sign-On details correctly, the dialog says "Authentication
      failed."

- -:--  After installation, Fluendo DVD Player does not appear in the
      installation history.
      <http://launchpad.net/bugs/637088>

Major areas I have not yet tested:
*   Whether the SSO registration process makes sense.
*   Reinstalling previous purchases (because I couldn't sign in).
*   What happens at each point if I lose my Internet connection.

- -- 
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/
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