website vs phone

A friend just had a new addition to their family. Exciting news.

My wife instructed me to send them flowers. Wives are good for remembering important stuff like that. So I found a local florist website and decided to use that rather than ring them up.

After about 10-15 minutes of having to fill out address and credit card information and select a suitable bunch of flowers, the deal was done. But it was a lot of effort.

If I had called them it would have taken about 2 minutes.

I've learned my lesson - next time I will just call them.

There are some things that don't translate well onto the web - having to be precise with address details, rather than just asking them to deliver to a particular hospital is an example.

I guess if they had automated the method of choosing the target location using common locations, then it may have been easier?

I think my point is, you shouldn't just translate a business transaction to the web without considering the usability aspect. There's no benefit in using this particular website over ringing the florist directly, in fact, it's a disincentive.

Silly, really.