Posted on March 20, 2008  Comments (2)

Go to NASA’s web site. Use the security settings that are most intelligent to use, the NoScript plugin for Firefox, and NASA makes this bold pointy haired boss statement at the top of every page:

“There’s a problem with your browser or settings.

Your browser or your browser’s settings are not supported. To get the best experience possible, please download a compatible browser. If you know your browser is up to date, you should check to ensure that javascript is enabled.”

Well no, there is no problem with my browser settings. And I am using the latest version of the most popular browser. 0 for 2 phb. What you mean to say is: I am so lame I hired someone who designed our web site so it fails to work properly without javascript enabled.

Jeez, get someone who know how to program a web site that just works. Any marginally competent individual can have your site work for any modern browser and then add in extra features people can take advantage using javascript, or flash or whatever extra things you want. It is amazing that an agency that is suppose to know about technology can do such a lame job of producing a web site. They do manage to provide good content for their web site (probably the content is provided by engineers while some phb decides they know what is best for the web site code).

Related: Astronaut and Earth – Usability Failures at the Royal Society Web Site – NSF Usability Failure – Webcasts by Chemistry and Physics Nobel Laureates