At 11:37 AM 13/06/2002 -0400, Patrick Chkoreff wrote:
>To me, doing a spend with GoldMoney is just the same old thing as it is with
>e-gold or e-bullion.  Enter two account numbers, a password, and an amount,
>press a button, and you're done.  It just looks like all the same thing to
>me.
>
>If you're talking about implementing the merchant interface (OMI), that
>looks about the same, too.  In fact, the GoldMoney OMI was the first
>interface I implemented.  It's just all the same old stuff.  Put up a form
>with a bunch of magic fields, set up a URL to which the payment gets posted,
>do an MD5 or SHA-1 hash to verify it, and you're done.

Hi Patrick,

I've sent off a few suggestions to Geoff Turk, who was responsive enough to 
email me directly (nearly a week ago). They are working on improving their 
interface, but certainly the payment interface as you mention above, is simple.

My impression was partly because to set up a two-cents-worth.com tip URL 
like this:
http://two-cents-worth.com/?501925c&GM
seems to require you to customise your GoldMoney account with an MD5 hash 
and stuff, that is just not required with e-gold. (And the concepts 
involved do not appear to be explained on the GoldMoney site.)

Surely even with the e-gold shopping cart interface one does not even need 
to know what an MD5 hash is, and does not need to use it in order to get 
paid. The user is directed to a custom page on the secure e-gold website 
(such as is generated by fastSCI or two-cents-worth) where they log in and 
you are paid. End of story, unless you need to confirm payments other than 
when logged in and looking at your e-gold history. Authentication hashes or 
encryption stuff should only come in when the payment volume is higher (or 
faster), and then the user/merchant is not going to be taken by surprise 
with new terminology.

When I see something unusual, I would like to see two things immediately 
explained.
1: What is it?
2: Why is it?
THEN they can go and explain the details.

For example, a tab boldly mentions "Payment Keys", which without 
explanation might inspire all sorts of questions and trepidation. Indeed, 
on the Payment Keys tab you see that you can create and check payment keys, 
but it is not mentioned what one is, or what it is used for! That 
information is found in the FAQ (but not in the help). One cannot assume 
that a user has read the FAQ before seeing a tab title that is displayed on 
the user's account page the moment they log in.

I've suggested that maybe the tab could be renamed "Emailing payments". I 
much prefer a functional or task-oriented menu structure than one organized 
by feature. This is how I reorganize Windows start menus, which makes for a 
much neater and comprehendible system.


Ian Green
http://two-cents-worth.com/?107242&EG
www.107242.clicktwocents.com
http://two-cents-worth.com/?501925c&GM
e-gold kaj GoldMoney estas monda mono! [Esperanto]
e-gold and GoldMoney are world money! [English]


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