If you’ve been on the internet for more than 10 minutes you’ve probably had to fill out a form that requires a Captcha code. Captchas are the annoying, practically illegible bits of text you must retype to verify you are human. The problem is a lot of humans can’t even read that crap! So instead of just complaining, we are offering a solution.
Sometimes you get a Captcha so bad you just want to cringe… like this example.
Can you tell what that says? Maybe if you have 20/20 vision. If not, your sh– out of luck.
When we run into Captchas that are unreadable then we get into the issue of usability. Webmasters should design and code sites so that everyone can use them, and if you have hard to read Captchas you make it hard for anyone with vision problems (anyone over 30) to read.
With that in mind I propose we change the system of verifying who is human and who is just a computer.
Today on Feedsee I saw one example of what we can do. With their Captcha-like system we are presented with a logic question – in plain text, not some warped image. We answer the question to verify we are human. This is the one I came across today:
With this system we can easily weed out computers without weeding out actual humans. Of course no system can be flaw proof, but this seems like a good idea that would work as a much better solution then we currently have.
Another idea is to show the visitor a number of pictures (lets say 4). The user would then be presented with a question or task such as click on the picture of the cat, and if they get it right they gain access. With this system a programmer could have someone make minor changes to a photo of a cat so that visually we can see its still a cat but to a computer they would be different images. See an example below.
Cat Captcha - Photo Credit BlogCDN.com
Whether we choose the logic Captcha, the Cat Captcha, or another option, it’s time to get rid of the current Captcha system and replace it with something that is a little more user friendly. After all, isn’t the goal of any good web designer usability?
by Mike McKeown
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March 22nd, 2010 on 3:20 pm
Captcha, oh yes it’s a super PITA but there’s one thing it does well. It keeps automated bots from just filling out forms that spam. Now I appreciate the alternatives that were brought up however if you’ve spent more than 11 minutes as a programmer/designer one thing is clear. People don’t read and more importantly people are crazy.
What I did to combat this is not using captcha at all. On http://theeasyapi.com (we offer an API service which interacts and standardizes other API’s making it easier to work with data) on our sign-up form I used a ajax call. What this does (as I’ve found) is that when the bot initially gets to the page there’s no form there. Once the user hits the select for the plan then it will show the form and they fill it out. No captcha at all. So far it’s been really good and with a steady stream of active developers using our system we are doing something right.
So these alternatives are ok, but honestly it’s assuming a lot. What is not a mythical creature? Really? Or my favorite is the math problems, people suck at math so even “basic” math it’s assuming an education level and intelligence level that your potential clients might not ascertain. Just some thoughts from this 12+ year programmer.
March 22nd, 2010 on 3:55 pm
Chad,
You bring up a very good point. I agree the mythical creature question is a bit hard, but I do like the idea. What I didn’t think about is even if you use a basic math problem like in your example, there are still people who are terrible at math and would have trouble. If we made it too easy (say 1+1) someone could easily figure out a program to get around it.
It is true that people do not read or pay attention as much as they should these days but isn’t it the same with Captcha? I’ve seen many computer novices completely ignore the Captcha box, try to submit and get an error. When they see they red text they don’t even read it, change nothing and try to submit again with no luck.
You bring up some very valid points that I agree with. We probably will never find a solution that pleases everyone and works well without a lot of thinking or work. That’s the problem with all those damn spammers out there.