Worst error message...ever

February 7, 2002

For a company whose reputation is based on making the Internet easy to use, AOL's software is not particularly clever. Ok, the AIM client has at least one particularly annoyingly braindead feature. For example: when signing on to the service, an error message box pops up with the text "You are attempting to sign on again too soon. Please try again later." The dialog box has two buttons: "OK" and "More Info." Figuring that I'd like to find out how long I need to wait in between signing on again, I clicked on the "More Info" button, which launches your web browser to AOL's homepage. It doesn't take you to a specific error page, or even a page about the instant messanger client program, but back to AOL.com. How is that useful? Shouldn't that button link directly to the error message help page? Or do the AOL execs think that because I'm having problems with their software that I'd be more willing to sign up for services that cost me money?