Mobile phone chargers - one size fits all (The Times)

At last, some sanity is to be imposed on mobile phone chargers. For years, I've specified Nokia phones for business use. This was convenient for all sorts of reasons, including similar menu/navigation structure and chargers that were all compatible. That started to go wrong a few years ago, and now we have a spread of different plug sizes, power ratings, and shapes. So here's some applause for the GSMA, the trade association for the mobile phone industry. Most phones should use the new chargers by 2012.

Adobe Acrobat 8.0 survey

Another poor online survey - this one by Adobe, who would like to know whether my company might or might not upgrade to Adobe Acrobat 8.0 at some time in the next year.

Amongst the horrors

Server errors when I first tried to respond - this makes a great impression

No Back button on each page to allow mistakes to be fixed; after a few uses of the browser's Back button, it got its knickers completely in a twist

Radio buttons with the instruction "please click all the reasons why..." - of course a radio button only allows you to click one

Inadequate list of business activities; although the Industry List includes Management Consulting, there's no selection in Principal Activities for consulting or project management, which is what I actually do

It didn't bother to ask if I recommend software for customers and if so, what the scale of this might be

Asking for a phone number for follow-up questions (no format indicated) and then refusing to accept a number in UK format or in +44 format

The people that put this survey together probably cost Adobe lots of dollars (or euros). It lookes to me as though a few dollars more, spent on proper design, review and testing, could have have given their marketing people some much more valuable results.