I like ice cream. Okay, I really like ice cream. Luckily, I also really enjoy exercise, so my raging sweet tooth is kept in check by my cardio program.

As a regular ice cream consumer, I also happen to be brand loyal, visiting the same dairy case during every grocery store trip. On my most recent trip, my predictable dessert routine was suddenly upset when I encountered a cleaned out shelf where my brand usually sits. (Okay, there were some flavors, but not my flavors.) Unable to face the prospect of not having a sweet treat after hours of burning calories, I surveyed the surrounding cases and selected another brand, "Brand B."

The ice cream was okay. Passable. But the packaging was terrible. My initial opening of the container was an ugly, sticky fight ending with my tending to the cardboard's wounds with plastic wrap and duck tape. I won't go into the details of the battle, but it was bad enough for me to decide to visit Brand B's web site and complain.

On the Brand B web site I found a small “Contact Us” link at the bottom of the page. (They weren’t exactly encouraging customer feedback.) I provided all of my vital statistics in order to get the form to submit, because all the fields were required. Normally, I would not do this; I would have bailed at the sight of all those little asterisks, but I was miffed enough that I was willing to share personal information to communicate my irritation.

I failed to complete a field or two exactly as Brand B wanted. There were no data format examples, despite the strict entry requirements, and the error messages I was presented with were barely decipherable, filled with typos. But with my knuckles still bruised from the ice cream container battle, I typed on. I was determined to share my pain. I carefully crafted my complaint, typing it in the inch square comment box. All of this took much more time than it should have due to the design of the form. Finally satisfied that I had eloquently expressed my dissatisfaction and met the form requirements, I hit submit.

I waited for the generic “thank you for your comment” message to appear.

What I got was an error message. Not a user “hey, you screwed up try again” error message, but an ugly line of code, fatal error, “this form doesn’t work at all” message. The info that I had labored to enter was gone. Now, in addition to being bruised and disappointed in the Brand B product, I was ticked off.

I came to Brand B’s web site as a disgruntled customer. My experience there could have changed my mind. Instead, it solidified my decision to never purchase the product again. Simply because someone didn’t take the time to design a form that was easy to fill out. And worked.

In the future, Brand B should think about what it’s like to be one of its site visitors. In the meantime, I'm switching to cookies.