AOL Desktop Gold feedback page needs improvement
This post is being made on 2018-08-22; I am on version 11.0.1916.
I was prompted to provide this feedback because in the process of trying to provide feedback on ANOTHER topic (which was my first attempt to use the feedback capability), I had difficulty with just the opening page! I was signed into AOL Desktop Gold via "Submit feedback" on the HELP menu. This opened a browser with the AOL Gold feedback landing page, but the upper right corner said "New and returning users may sign in" and did not reflect knowledge of me as a user. Clicking on that link prompted me for an email address and name, and offered a button labeled "Sign up"! What I would be "signing up" for was not specified, and I definitely didn't want to sign up for anything, so I cancelled out and found I could provide feedback without following that path. AFTER I provided feedback (new item) the upper right corner showed my Gravatar -- labeled ANONYMOUS (!) with live links for "Stay signed in", "Settings", and "Sign out". What the settings were for was not specified and it wasn't even clear what I was signed into as far as the web site was concerned. I figured "Settings" had to be harmless and followed that, to discover that it applied to the feedback mechanism -- and that even as a registered and signed-in AOL user, I had to change my "name" to be something other than ANONYMOUS.
All of this reflects less than optimal page / functional design, and needs improvement -- even if "feedback" is a minor component of things. I realize that it gets a lot of abuse -- maybe you need an "insider" program like Microsoft's for people who are sincerely interested in improving the product. FYI, I've been an AOL user since its inception, and involved in computing and software development for ~50 years, so this is not my first rodeo and I have the chops to comment on interface design.
CCurtis
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