I was creating test accounts today, to use in testing facebook apps.
Though you normally are not allowed to have multiple accounts, it is allowed if you are a FaceBook developer. You create the initial account, and then convert it to a "test" account by visiting this URL:
http://www.facebook.com/developers/become_test_account.php
Anyway, I was creating test accounts, and to make them easier to remember I was using birthdays of real people who are now deceased. Some of the people were born in years like 1902 and 1908.
On the initial signup screen, FaceBook DOES have those years listed in its dropdown list of Years, though you have to scroll a bit. But it will NOT ACCEPT BIRTHDATES from 1902 or 1908. It complains "please enter a valid date".
Well, this IS a valid date, a 100 year old person could still want to use facebook, not too many, but it *could* happen. AND it's one of the choices ON THEIR FORM, so presumably somebody at FaceBook thought it was valid at some point.
Fear not centenarians - there is a workaround! If you add 10 years to the initial birthday on the signup screen, making it 1918 instead of 1908 for example, you CAN then edit it back to 1908 once you've completed the signup process and verified your email, etc. You do this by editing your profile. It appears to be the same form, with the same choices, and this time it accepts it.
So is this a big deal? It's certainly not FB's target demographic, though they are attracting older users these days in the US, and always had older users in some countries.
One criteria for ranking the priority of bugs at a company is the number of people who are affected. Just considering the US and Japan, Wikipedia puts the combined estimated total at about 85,000 centenarians. If only 1% of them were online, that would still be 850 potential users, and given the popularity of FaceBook, maybe 1/4 would try to use it, so maybe 200 people. That might seem small, but equal access is not there to project the majority, and although the numbers are really small, this could result in a high profile news item on a local TV station, the headlines would make for a good sound bite. So the potential for bad PR disproportionate.
Another criteria for ranking the priority of bugs is whether there is an easy workaround or not. In this case there is, read below, but the initial signup experience takes on an "unwelcoming" tone.
Also, maybe a 100 year old person wouldn't suddenly wake up and start using the Internet, but imagine somebody who had been in the technology field as a profession, and started using PC's back in the 1980s, whey they were perhaps 75 years old, a much more likely scenario, and had kept using them. They could still be online. Also consider that an elderly person might be getting help from a younger person to do the initial setup; senior citizens could certainly have interesting stories to share online, even if they aren't doing the actual typing. Even younger disabled people sometimes have their caregiver doing the typing and mousing for them.
I think FaceBook could make a couple easy changes to fix this bug:
1: Don't put years in the drop down list on the initial screen that will be rejected. This seems the most obvious start.
Or better still:
2: In the error message, explain that if they really ARE that old then Welcome to facebook and you can update your age in the Profile page.
Or even:
3.a: Use the Guinness Book of Records to find the oldest person and accept years up to that oldest known living person. Along with...
3.b: If the age is more than 2 or 3 standard deviations off from the mean, politely ask "are you sure" ?
Just my 2 cents.
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