Silly Bank of America Web Site

Posted: September 22, 2013 | Categories: Mobile Development

I was on the Bank of America web site the other day using my BlackBerry Q10 device and noticed something interesting as shown in the following figure. The web site recognized I was on a mobile device and for some bizarre reason decided to rotate the page sideways.

I'm trying to figure out the user story or requirements that drove them to implement their site this way. I'm not a fan of an operating system or web site making decisions on my behalf. If I was on a touch-only device like the BlackBerry Z30, then rotating it sideways would not be what I wanted, but would at least be useable. Since this was a Q10 and has a full keyboard, rotating the page like they did actually makes the site quite unusable; I won't be able to read the screen while typing anything.

Ugh.

Now, they know I'm on a BlackBerry device and kindly offered me a link I could use to download their mobile app.

Unfortunately, they don't offer an app that is compatible with my particular device as shown in the following figure. Why even offer me a chance to download an app for my device when you know what device I'm using AND you also know that there IS NO app for that device?

Ugh again!

I was actually using their site because I needed to find an ATM and knew there wasn't an app for my device, I'd already checked. I happened to be in Akron, Ohio and was looking for an ATM nearby. Here's the results they delivered for my search:

Now I know delivering no results is problematic, just in case I am willing to drive some distance to find the particular ATM, but looking at the figure, do they really think I'm going to drive almost 100 miles to use one of their ATMs? Paying a $2 fee to use another bank's ATM would be a much better option for me than to drive 99 miles. In my car, if the trip was 100% highway, that would be at least $12 in gas for me to use that ATM.

Thinking through this, I'm imagining that a survey of their users would tell them that most people probably have a 25 mile or highly unlikely but possible 50 mile distance they would be willing to drive to locate a store, but an ATM? I don't think so.

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