by jezwalker
14. June 2010 12:50
Over the years, I have entered CAPTCHA codes on many websites and am familiar with the process of entering a random number of barely legible characters into a text box. It was not until just before the England v USA World Cup game on Saturday, however, that I was asked to answer the direct question “Are you a human?” My initial thoughts were “well what else would I be ... a martian looking to buy a new pair of trainers?!”
I appreciate the need to eliminate fraud and capture data correctly so reluctantly entered the answer to the stock question ”What colour is the sky on a clear day” and went on to purchase my shiny new trainers. This solution often turns real humans away from websites. By adding postcode lookup, mobile validation and email validation to a website, you can ask the more real question: “Are you giving us genuine data we require to correctly capture for our database?”
A couple of hours later, while watching England’s performance against USA, I was reminded of my online shopping experience by hearing two stock comments about Rob Green’s error: “We all make mistakes” and “He’s only human.” Using software such as our postcode lookup API you can eliminate mistakes and get the information you require quickly and simply, reducing drop rates from your registration or contact page.
Unfortunately Data8 can do nothing to help Messrs Green, Hart or James from reducing their drop rates!