Gotta pay those bills. No one likes paying them, some try to avoid them, but at the end of the day paying your bills is one of those 'responsible grown-up things' that your mum always talked about. Fine. The electric bill arrived. At least it's an online statement - a tree was saved. While environmentalists celebrated, I quietly wept at what was owed. Damn you cold winters! At least British Gas provide an online payment service, so I have been speared the pain, and more tears, of calling them. Now, I'm a big believer of business that have embraced the web, especially those that at the end of the day make it easier for me to fulfil my obligations. So I rocked along to the British Gas site, logged on in, selected 'make a payment'. All was going well. I'll be in and out in no time, safe in the knowledge the PS3 will be powered for another month. However, this is where I started to notice a few scratch marks, on an otherwise polished payment service. Firstly, I could only pay one account at a time. WTF? I owed both gas and electricity. I received the bill for both at the same time. Why can I pay for both at the same time? Sure I think that the fact you can pay online is great, but not to the point where I want to have to go through the process twice. What about time saving? [caption id="attachment_222" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Radio select - but I wanted to pay for both in one transaction"] [/caption] Perhaps the help question, aptly entitled 'Can I make more than one payment?' will be of assistance. Nope. [caption id="attachment_213" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Let's check out the help"] [/caption] [caption id="attachment_214" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Help says no"] [/caption] Fine, so I selected the account to pay. Roll on step two. What's this? [caption id="attachment_215" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Don't make me think please"] [/caption] It may seem like a small thing, but the fact I needed to stop and think about matching the numeric date on my card to the corresponding month in the drop down, is a rookie mistake. Matching systems with the real world is super important, especially when people are entering personal information. This issue could be simply resolved by adding (XX) in front of the month, where XX is the month number, so January would be displayed (01) January in the list. Right, step two rant over. Time to review my details then pay the man. But wait a minute. What's this? [caption id="attachment_217" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Come on. At least be consistent"] [/caption] The date is now numeric! Consistency please BG. Gripes aside, there are some good things about this process. For a start, the process is short. You also know where you are at each step, and help is provided along with the option to go back and correct any information. Finally, and most importantly, it works. Now where did I put that controller?