Posted from: South Carolina

That’s right. The development team at Papa John’s, along with the whole marketing department, sat down together and collectively determined that you, at the very least, enjoy a good hard flogging. And then, following that logic, they instituted an online ordering and checkout process that caters exclusively to their masochistic target market.

Dear Papa John’s: I will fail to perform a usability assessment for *way less* than your guys are charging.

Behold, a maze of digital dungeons and garden-topped horror… *flashback dream sequence*

SCREEN ONE: THE HOMEPAGE

Giant picture of stretchy cheese, check. In-your-face order button, check. Masturbatory picture of founder making a manly basketball shot. Um, check. The door to the labyrinth is deliciously disguised in garlands of high-calorie photography. Pizza: I want it.

Except for the one that’s in Spanish, the nav buttons are looking pretty useful. Hell, standing here, I feel like I can do anything. I’m on top of the world. I can even follow Papa John’s on Twitter (“Making another pizza!” posted at 10:25a.m. “Making another pizza!” posted at 10:25-and-a-half-a.m. “Making another pizza!” posted at…). Turns out that what I can’t do is view the menu without plugging in my zip code.

Not that this is unique to Papa John’s. Thanks to the joys of franchising, each menu is probably a bit different, and they need your location to give you accurate readings. So we’ll cut them some slack, and click on “Menu & Specials”.

Which brings us to…

SCREEN TWO: PLUGGING IN YOUR ADDRESS

The problem here is that plugging in your address and zip code takes you to one screen, while plugging in your city and state takes you to a completely different and way more confusing screen. In a futile bid for expediency, let’s pretend I don’t know that, and I’ll jump straight into the ordering process by filling in an address and zip.

SCREEN 3: THE MENU

Helllooooo, ugly! But OK. Large pizza, plz.

SCREEN 4: CHOICES, CHOICES

If the choose-your-toppings screen has to be this long, then it better be fun to navigate. It had better not, Papa Johns, look like an interactive Privacy Policy. Bottom of the page, I’m presented with two options: “Add to Order”, and “Add to order & checkout”.

I’ve picked a large pizza, I’ve added some topping goodness, and now I want to eat it, so I’m gonna go ahead and “Add to order & checkout”.

SCREEN 5: OHEZ NOES!

But… I don’t have an account. The email address that auto-appears belongs to someone else who used this computer months ago. And there’s no “Not You? Sign up for a new account” option. Save me, Firefox Back Button!

SCREEN 4… AGAIN

Following the trail of garlic-powdered breadcrumbs I’ve cunningly strewn along my path, I land back on the Choices screen, where I, imitating the casual pizza buyer, fail to notice that all of my selections have been wiped, meaning I’ll need to plug them again. Getting hungrier, I try the other button. Add to Cart.

SCREEN 5′s EVIL TWIN: AN ERROR HAS BEEN DETECTOREDZ

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. That would be the funniest prank call ever. “Yeah, hi, Papa Johns? Oh good. I’d just like to report that there are invalid items in deal code EDO89, but I think that’s only for restaurant number 369.”

I am so tempted to call them right now and actually… oh, no wait. Even if I wanted to, I can’t make that phone call, because there is no number, Neo. There is also no useful error text to explain to the user what actually went wrong. And in an age of live field authentication, there is no need for this screen.

I’m guessing I landed here because I didn’t re-do the choices screen. So let’s hit “Continue”, which should take me back to that screen, where I can modify my… oh. Nevermind.

SCREEN 3: WRATH OF KHAN

Aaaand we’re back to the menu. Aaaand I now have 2 items in my cart, though I only wanted one. I don’t see a checkout button. “View Cart”, maybe?

And another thing: I try really hard not to get my panties in a bunch over “their” vs. “they’re” mistakes and other small annoyances in casual writing. I don’t want to be that girl. But if you were to see mah panties in the presence of crappy grammar, you might rightly point out that they do wad up a little. And I can’t help feeling like having a “View Cart” button for a pizza delivery checkout is a copywriting fail. Just as there is, in fact, no crying in baseball, so there are also no carts in pizza.

Point is, it doesn’t matter what you put on the button, as long as your customers know exactly and immediately how to give you money. “View Cart” doesn’t do it for me.

SCREEN 6: CART

After removing the superfluous pizza, my order looks right, and I would really, really, really like to eat now. Checkout button gets some love.

SCREEN 5: BACK IN BLACK

Dude, you have got to be kidding me. And don’t even ask me what happens here when you have a second Papa John’s tab open, because I’ll lose d6 sanity points. If you were gonna force me to login (which I shouldn’t actually have to do to order from you), then all login information should have been gathered when a) you were gathering zip code data and b) I was still excited about ordering.

This is where 95% of your frustrated customers pick up the phone and just call the order in, begging the question: Why, pray tell, did you spend 20 grand on an online ordering system?

With the Horn of Gondor ringing in my ears, I decide this is no longer about pizza. This is about war.

A very careful perusal of the screen I’m staring at yields up a clue:

A HAH!

SCREEN 7: A NEW ACCOUNT SIGNUP BUTTON!

Sigh. Click.

(Also, “Online Need Help Guide?” Yes, online help you need.)

SCREEN 8: FILLING OUT MY TAX RETURN

After filling out a strangely dual-paneled questionnaire (nice mushrooms) in which I tell PJ’s my marital status, favorite Crayon color and consistency of my last stool sample we get to:

SCREEN 9: NOW WITH 100% MORE POINTLESS CLICKING

SCREEN 10: MAKE IT STOP

SCREEN… 3

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

“I am so offended right now,” said my husband, giving up and logging onto Dominos, “that I’d rather be repeatedly kneed in the balls by the Noid than pay Papa John’s twenty bucks to not fix their interface. And I don’t even like Dominos.”