Part of my job is to answer emails from patrons about our website. Sometimes patrons can be kind of snarky in their emails ("Why does your site do this when I obviously told it to do this other thing?!???!?!?!"), and I take great pleasure in either fixing the problem or writing back and very tactfully explaining what they did wrong. (I take no pleasure when there's nothing I can do about the problem. That just annoys me.)
Yesterday I answered just such an email. I saw immediately what she had done wrong and why it would be confusing. So, in great detail, I explained how each part of the site worked, and even went beyond that and did her search for her, telling her exactly where she could find the data she wanted. It made me feel kind of cool to be able to answer her email in such detail.
Today I got the following reply from her, "That was a FANTASTIC explanation! Thank you for taking time to do all that for me."
It made me smile. Those kind of responses make all the snarky emails totally worth it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
I wonder if I'm the only one who can't read this blog without hi-lighting it because the contrast is so poor.
Ummm... I'm guessing so. Because no one else I've asked has any problem. It's dark brown on cream. That's a lot of contrast. I've asked several people as well as tried it myself in three different browsers. Sorry, friend.
I suggest you get Google reader. It's all black and white in there. Or maybe visit the optometrist?
Interesting. Today, on a different computer I can just barely read it. Dark brown on cream? On this computer it looks sort of like dark gray letters on a dark maroon, but that makes it sound more legible than it really is.
Visit an optometrist? I don't have a problem with any of the dozen or so other blogs I look at.
Oh well, thanks for checking. I just thought perhaps your friends were too nice to mention the problem to you. Since they seem to have no problems then I must be raising a false alarm. Sorry about that. Just trying to be helpful.
Aha! I think I know what the problem is. Well, not how to solve it, but the problem.
The background of my blog is maroon. That way, when you view it full screen, there is color behind the green and cream pattern I have on my blog.
And that's the problem. You aren't seeing the overlay I have over the maroon. I have no idea why this might happen. What browser are you using?
That's curious. I decided to use yet another computer. This one uses Firefox. The other two use Internet Explorer.
For a couple of seconds I saw on this computer what I have always been seeing. Then, all by itself, the computer blinked and the overlay came into effect. I could then see your blog perfectly clearly.
Changing my browser may not be so easy. I don't have administrative rights. Tomorrow I'll see what I can do.
Thanks for your help.
Interesting. I found a way to use Firefox on a computer where your blog used to be unreadable. It's still unreadable.
I just tried Netscape, and your blog was worse than ever.
It looks like I'm the one with a problem. I think the firewall I have messes up the web pages in some cases.
Now that I know I have the problem I'll work around it. You look beautiful when not seen behind a firewall, so don't change for me.
Post a Comment