I have this little pet peeve and I was reminded of it again when I ordered a present for my mom (at the last minute) for Mother’s Day. My pet peeve is webpage title lines that do not apply to the webpage you’re actually reading. (The title line is the very top most part of your browser, probably a blue bar, next to the icon of the type of browser you are using. If you’re on my blog, that title line says Daily Dose of Denise – if you’re in a specific post, it says Daily Dose of Denise: Daily Dose of ______)
A lot of websites use a generic title line, it stays static through the site, regardless of what page you’re on. That’s ok with me, as long as it isn’t in some way misleading. For instance, I don’t mind if every page I’m on at Amazon just says Amazon.com. I don’t mind if I’m at WebMD and all of the pages just say WebMD. (Neither of these sites have a static title line, I’m just saying – I don’t mind when sites do this.)
I do, however, mind a static title line if it is misleading to me because it is not representative of the page I am on. Let’s pretend I’ve been watching a lot of TV and I’m really falling in love with the Toyota Yaris (I’m not watching a lot of tv nor in love with this car, I do like the commercials though). I am bored at work and decide to go and look at them on the Toyota webpage. Imagine I click the Toyota Yaris icon and the title line changes to Toyota.com – Hybrid Vehicle. Ummm the Yaris is not a Hybrid but I, knowing not much about cars might assume that it is. I might base my buying decision on this, get to the dealer and find out that it is not a Hybrid after all. Bummer and it would really annoy me – maybe so much that I decided not to buy that Yaris after all. Maybe so much that I wouldn’t buy any car from them at all. (Luckily, Toyota does not have this type of misleading web design so my Prius lust is safe.)
Moonstruck Chocolate, on the other hand does, sort of.
TW was surfing some very pretty chocolates, just a few days before Mother’s Day. I asked her where she was surfing and quickly made my way to Moonstruck Chocolates. See that pretty pink chocolate handbag? See the browser title line? It says "Moonstruck Fine Chocolate Truffle Gourmet Gifts". That’s cool! I like that. I’ll click in and see what they have! So I click the pretty pink purse. (Pink purses are not my mom’s thing, maybe they have something else….) I’m on the Chocolate Couture page and the title line now says "Unique Chocolate Gifts, gourmet chocolate gifts". Excellent. I scroll down and I see these adorable flower pots. Yes! Totally my mom’s thing. I click and look up there at the title line, it now reads "Gourmet Chocolate Truffle, Unique Dark Chocolate Gift"! OMG excellent my mom loves dark chocolate! I click and I order and I’m done.
Two days later, my mom calls me to exclaim about how gorgeous these things are! She wants to know all about them but isn’t ready to eat them yet because she wants to share them with Ken. I tell her I thought she’d like them and they’re dark chocolate! So enjoy!
She calls me back on Sunday to thank me – they’re awesome but ummm they aren’t dark chocolate. What? Huh? I go to the webpage and I still see the subject line. It says dark chocolate! Did I screw up and miss the place where I had to indicate the type? No. Alas. The description on the product clearly says milk chocolate. Sigh. I was in a hurry. I read the title line because it appeared before the images. I saw the pretty picture and I ordered. My fault. But still. The title line lured me in. If it hadn’t said dark chocolate, I’d have read the real description and I’d have kept clicking on the site til I found dark chocolate.
I wrote to Moonstruck. I thanked them for the very pretty chocolate that my mom enjoyed, because she did. It was good. But I also suggested they change the title line in the browser because it was misleading. I did not ask for a refund. I was not rude. I simply pointed out that I was misled and would not like to see that happen to someone else.
Moonstruck’s rep emailed me back and needed me to describe what I was seeing because she was not seeing this title line. I explained browsers and I sent a screenshot. Her reply to this sent me over the edge:
Thank you for your reply. We appreciate your emails and the comments you mentioned. We have again reviewed the site and pages in detail and do not see anything mentioning Dark Chocolate when referring to the Flower Pots. The browser bar description is not referring to our flower pots and would most likely be displayed whether you were looking at our chocolate flower pots or boxed assorted chocolate collections, etc. The verbiage does not come from Moonstruck Chocolate but from our web browser.
Ummm hello. The verbiage does change from page to page. It isn’t static all of the way through. And, more to the point – What do you mean it doesn’t come from Moonstruck Chocolate? This is your page. You own it.
I didn’t want a refund. It was MY fault for trusting the title line and not reading the description very carefully. My mom did, enjoy the chocolate. What I wanted was a thank you for bringing that to our attention and I’m sorry if this caused you to order a product you might otherwise not have ordered. Even just a thanks for bringing this to our attention would have been FINE. I would have blogged about the good tasting, pretty chocolate that was inexpensive (inexpensive being a relative term). And I would have ordered from there again and again and again.
Now. I’m not.
If you run a web-based company and your title lines are misleading and misrepresentative of your product or your site then change them. Or own up to the fact that you MIGHT be misleading people. Do not tell me this is not your problem. Goodbye Moonstruck, it was not so nice knowing you.
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