Site Design Basics

This is the web page to make payments for services in my city. Even though I've lived in my home for two months, I just received my first water bill and it only covered the last 15 days. I hate writing checks and mailing bills, so I'm glad they had an option to pay online.

But before making payment I had to enter my account information. So the page instructed me to take the account number on my statement and split it in half before entering it. It seems the first six numbers are actually my customer ID and the last six are my account number.

Wait, what?

First of all, it's confusing to have the "Account Number" represent both the actual account number and the Customer ID. Then they ask for the account number first when it's the last six digits. This is unnecessary and counterintuitive. Both of these problems could've been avoided by asking for the whole "Account Number" in one twelve-digit number (as it's listed on the bill) and then splitting it behind the scenes.

And on top of all this, it didn't find my record when I entered my information.

Sigh.