They will not thank you
and your experience will vary.
They will not thank you
I find bugs in software. I was not trained to do so. In fact, when I started there wasn’t even a formal process for learning how a bug could be found. I’m going to start from the beginning for you, and then talk about where I came in, and why, like Balin and his kin, I cannot get out.
The term “bug” as it relates to computer science is not pillaged from any other scientific discipline. It is literal. The actual bug itself remains taped to Admiral Grace Hopper’s notes after it had been removed from room-size computer she was helping build. The term has grown in scope and size to cover a range of behavior from both hardware and software systems as to be nearly meaningless against the broader field of scientific inquiry. In fact, a true software bug, to be of any use, requires significant documentation to even be described. This is a topic to be exhausted elsewhere, but fortunately computer science did not adopt the same classification system as the life-sciences have for actual insects. No one needs that much Latin these days.
However, I will discuss a particular bug. One that I just experienced not more than an hour ago. I’m going to do this because I am tired, and I want others to be better.
It’s November 12th, 2023 and my son and I are flying home from a 4-day NYC mini-vcation. His mother is staying on in the city for the week, so we are on our own to navigate a taxi to JFK.
We get situated in the back of the taxi and I’m pleased to see that there many options for payment of the rather pricey fare. The driver asks “Cash or credit” as we are pulling out, and I say “I think we will do credit.” even though I do have enough cash on my person in case all technological options that I have at my disposal fail.
This is a well provisioned, newer model, NYC taxi. There is a full credit card terminal positioned behind the passenger seat, and a 10-inch touch screen positioned in the middle of the divider wall.
The touch screen blares a commercial for NBC/Universal’s streaming service Peacock, which my son notices because he’s just experienced a studio tour there. My first interaction with the technology in the cab is to search for the mute button on this info-screen. Here I find my first “bug”.
This is not the bug I’m writing about. It’s just the first one I find. This one will never be fixed, but arguably it is the worst one I’ll discuss. On this particular touch screen, there is a wide bezel that has been branded by the service that operates it. Their kelly green logo is prominent against the flat black paint on the bezel. The green is matched against the screen layout. It’s divided roughly in thirds with the video loop rolling commercials in the right two-thirds of the screen. Above that is a small black task-bar with dark grey symbols that seems to control the screen experience. The middle icon, barely visible in the morning sunshine, is a thin speaker with an even thinner circle-slash over top. I can barely see it, but the mute button does thankfully function.
Have you identified the first bug yet? Let me spell it out. That mute button runs terribly afoul of the Americans With Disabilities act. If I were a sight-impaired person, It would have been exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, for me to turn off the sound of those advertisements for me to have conversations with our driver. I have no such disability, but I still had trouble hearing him to respond “JFK please - Alaska Airlines”. He clarified. “Alaska?”. I answered “Yes - Alaska.” He couldn’t hear me either. It took me, as a privileged, sighted person, more time to find and use the mute button, than it took to have that conversation.
In order for that bug to be fixed someone will have to file a lawsuit against the provider of the screen, citing the ADA and the damage it caused that person. It will likely never happen. But, that’s still not the bug I’m talking about here. That is just what got my attention.
So, I examined the screen to direct my serro-divergent brain away from the jolting and honking that accompanies a NYC taxi journey. I notice this company has reserved the remaining third of the screen to static ad promotion. That’s fine, whatever. Outlined in the same bright green and white (significantly higher contrast than the controls) I see a some text that says “Pair and Save” with a 7-digit numeric code. There are no further instructions on that panel, but since my brain is firmly dousing itself in fight or flight chemicals I keep scanning over the interface to keep myself calm for my son. Incidentally, he is carelessly hunting Pokémon.
In the lower right corner there is another green and white ad that has QR code and text that states you can conveniently download the company’s application. Enter code CURB88 for $10 off your first ride! As I mentioned earlier, pricey ride, should try and save a bit, eh? I’ve got at least 30 minutes and more than 25 years of tech experience. I should be able to save $10, right? There’s another accessibility bug here, but It ultimately won’t matter. Just setting a reference point here for later.
I scanned the QR code for iOS, and the App store loaded as I expected. The first app in the list was not the app from the service in question. The first app in the App Store list was for a competing ride-share service. This is another bug - a bug that actually belongs to Apple. It is intentional. This competing service has paid Apple to disrupt your download experience and place their application ahead of the one I am looking for. I’d love to insert the amount of money that Apple makes on this placement, but it’s likely not publicly available. Is a bug a bug if it disrupts your experience, but makes money for the company that provides your technology? Ask the Windows start menu if it ever returns.
Still not to the big bug here, so on we go.
I do not have this app on my phone, and as many companies do, I am asked to create an account. This is the true hope of the company that is sponsoring the touch screen. Download the app, use it to pay for your ride, and a plethora of data about you and the trips you take becomes available to them. It is worth it to them to give you $10 just to be able to identify you and trace your movements. (Keep in mind this taxi has a normal credit card terminal outfitted with braile numeric keys. A non-sighted person could tap in a pin just fine.) But, I still want my 10 dollars. Now 10 minutes into the 30 minute ride, I’m attempting to register with the company. This process lasts another 15 minutes before I give up entirely. I try my phone number, but they also want an email. I provide an email address and discover that I’ve already registered an account with this company some time in the distant past. I check my passwords managers to see if I have a record of that account and find nothing. Minutes are ticking by here. So, I request a password reset and look out the window for a bit to calm my motion sickness. I crack open the window and wait. I check my spam folders and wait. I request the reset again and wait. No email is forthcoming. It does not dawn on me that even if I successfully get a password reset, I’ll likely not get the discount, because it may not have been my “First Ride” with this service. Hard to say, because I’m still waiting on that email. Pretty big bug for that company - but still not the one I’m writing about.
“How was the cab ride?” my partner asked after I sent her confirmation that my son and I had made it to the airport in one piece. “Jolty.” I replied. I had begun thinking about the driver’s tip 5 minutes before we pulled off the freeway into the JFK access roads. What’s it worth to arrive efficiently and safely if only a tad carsick? 10% I decided. Demonstrably a terrible tip. I don’t tip like that in general, but each and every one of these “bugs” had increased my frustration level to the point that the honks, jolts, and his continuous phone conversation had sent me over the edge. My son hopped out of the cab dutifully, spilling the contents of his pockets into the seat. I collected them and went to complete the transaction on the credit card machine. I struggled to remember the credit card pin. The tip options were listed in three large monochrome options. 20%, 25%, and 30%. With the cabbie over my shoulder, son waiting on the curb, I gave up and gave in to the last bug. There was no clear, obvious option for a custom tip amount. It may have been there, hiding in small font somewhere - but in that moment I could not find it. I gave a tip larger than the amount of money I was trying to save all through the cab ride to save. It was really $9 more than I expected if you count the tolls and an inexplicable $1 transaction fee. That too, is a bug. I’m sure that the cabbie would have preferred cash in any case.
Incidentally - don’t make your discount codes hard to read. The letters R B 8 and 0 are a nightmare for people who are aging and need reading glasses.
Anybody counting bugs? Which one was the worst? To whom did it belong? What would have they said if you had informed them? Each one of my dashed expectations would have required a narrative to explain, a small mountain of data to fully identify, and money to ultimately fix. The respective code bases for the involved in these applications exist across an unknown number of companies that is no less than three but could be much higher. Most were likely created by engineers who have no involvement in their upkeep or have moved on to other projects. The companies that operate the software have little financial incentive to improve these experiences for their customers, because the customers have no other options for these services.
Most of the issues I describe in this narrative can be attributed to defects in the accessibility realm, whether intentional or otherwise.
Ultimately, I don’t even know where the most consequential bug lives. My password change confirmation email never appeared. I considered that the most debilitating of all these. There’s a chance that an algorithm that lives in Google’s spam identification software ate them, based on a heuristic that the company deems propriety and secret. Perhaps Apple blocked that company in favor of their preferred ride-share vendor. Perhaps the email was never sent, or the security certificate for the email provider has expired and not yet renewed. Perhaps the wireless carrier was protecting me from yet another automated process correctly identified as “bot traffic”. (Of course a password reset is sent by a bot - did you think a human was typing them out and hitting send?). I’ll never know. If I worked for this payment service provider / personal data vacuuming company I could perhaps identify the transaction buried in an application log and back-track that through the intervening services. But then again, actually fixing a bug like that would require several different disciplines working in concert to verify the failure, fix it, and then verify that it had been addressed. Very few corporations have that strong a commitment to their potential customers.
All I know is I used to love solving puzzles like this. Now I’m simply exhausted by them. I can show how, just don’t make me do it any more. I am tired of seeking and finding other’s failures.