So, I decided to do what I do best: google for stuff. I ended up visiting the first bank site, where I have an account: http://www.firstbanknigeria.com/index.asp . I dare say they ripped their design, in part or in whole from www.bofa.com but I digress and quite frankly, I could care less.

I must say I am impressed - no more crappy animations and a much simpler interface. So I decided to sign up for internet banking. It took me a bit of time to find the link (about 3 levels deep), but because of the better interface, I decided to ignore this issue.

Then came time to sign up. I clicked the link, got a pop-up window and began licking my lips for the golden moment as I clicked on the "agreement" checkbox which enabled the button for me to proceed further. The page didn't come up immediately, again, okay by me. Maybe, a trip was being made to a secure server. Who knows? Anyways, a few seconds later, I get this message:

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80004005'

[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][DBNETLIB]SQL Server does not exist or access denied.

C:\INETPUB\ELEPHANT\ADC\, /Includes/dbconn2.inc, line 4 

Now I am angry. One would think that for such a prestigious bank, they would have hired developers to do the appropriate testing - unit, system and user acceptance. Now, I have to wait for when next I visit Nigeria to sign up for this. After that, who even knows if I will still be able to access my account online? I am even contemplating closing this account and opening an account with another bank

Lesson Learned: *Always* have test cases for each piece of functionality you write. This will help verify such functionality. If you don't have the time to do so, get a tester. You don't even have to pay the person. He/She could even be the akara seller down the street. But for pete's sake, **test all pieces of functionality b4 you launch**

@my2cents,

What makes you think the 2 sites have anything in common?

As regards functionality, many companies are just realizing that beautiful faces on websites and huge banners don't make the sale.

A lot of substandard websites are tolerated by their owners today because they don't depend on the websites for revenue or anything, some just decided to own websites because their friends or competitors have websites.

Afam,

Take a look at the horizontal nav bar. Check out the colors used for active and visited states. Check out the arrow in the background. The new BofA site just launche recently. How do I know? I bank with them. Prior to what they have now, they used arrows in the background as well. Of course, I don't know when FB launched their redesign so I can't really say. Other things I noticed was the grid layout, and logo placement.

The changes are subtle and someone who doesn't frequently visit either site would barely notice. Having said that, as I said above, I could care less. What matters to me right now is that I am pissed I can't register for internet banking, not because of me but because the developers didn't bother to do some testing