Saturday, September 3, 2011

City's Online Parking Ticket Payment Feedback Form Designed to Mislead Public About Satisfaction With System

I ran across the new feedback form on paying the parking tickets you receive in Indianapolis.  The form has five categories for feedback, listed in order:  "Complaint," "Praise," "Problem," "Question" and "Suggestion."

The form then has a blank where you can enter a comment and lines for your contact information along with a button to "Submit."

I'm not sure if this new form was designed by the City or ParkIndy, i.e. ACS.  What I found interesting is the clever way they had the form set up so they could undoubtedly later claim a higher than justified favorable rate of satisfaction with the system.  Instead of setting it up the form so the user has to pick from one of the five categories, they have it set up so the second category of "Praise" is pre-selected for the user.

There will undoubtedly a large percent of users who will fill out the form with complaints and criticism, only to never click off the "Praise" selection.  Do you think the City/ParkIndy/ACS will admit that users who submit stinging criticism but fail to uncheck the "Praise" selection are offering negative feedback?  Don't count on it.

1 comment:

Bill said...

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