Fumble with Stumble(Upon)

This one's for the record.

I get a StumbleUpon invitation to join/register all that jazz. I go for it because I trust the person who sent me the request. This thing then lures me into telling who else from my contacts are on this thing (not unlike Facebook). So, I sign in with my google account and it shows me the people who have already stumbled in life :P

And there's a big bad button saying continue or next step or whatever which I gladly push after having selected the people I wanted in my network. What I don't realize because it is so deliberately hidden from me is that below the already registered users is a list of all other emails/contacts from my gmail account whom I "wished" to invite, with the default as "Select All".

Lo and behold 750 of contacts get a StumbleUpon request from me. This is negligent design and amounts to cheating at some level. Its so super embarrassing that I don't even know where to begin my apologies.

Here's where design ethics comes in. Why should the "Select all" be checked by default? And pray,tell me why should this invite list be hidden from me? Also take note, Facebook (but as a saving grace at the sneaky checkbox is clearly visible).

Fumble, stumble, jumble,grumble....

Oh I also had issues complaining on their site. Here's the transcript:

Even submitting a complaint on this site is problematic. Why can't you tell me that my complaint has been submitted or not instead of smacking the FAQ page right into my face after I click this "Send Message" button? And I have to scroll down so far down the page to realize that my message hasn't gone through yet?

I take this as deception and its in very poor taste.

This topic will remain hot, watch this space.