Acer website usability FAIL

How can you be a huge PC manufacturer and not have a usable website for your potential customers? Acer will show you exactly how.

Scenario:

1. I find a great looking Acer monitor on some website: Acer S243HLbmii
2. Google search the bastard! First result, the Acer website. Great, I’ll go straight to the source and get my information. Quick and simple.
3. I end up at a strange URL:

   http://us.acer.com/acer/product.do?LanguageISOCtxParam=en&rcond5e.c2att92=169&inu49e.current.c2att92=169&link=ln314e&CountryISOCtxParam=US&kcond47e.c2att92=169&rcond159e.att21k=1&kcond48e.c2att101=62722&rcond190e.att21k=1&acond23=US&rcond4e.att21k=1&sp=page17e&rcond157e.c2att92=169&ctx1g.c2att92=169&rcond42e.att21k=1&kcond50e.c2att92=169&rcond45e.att21k=1&rcond158e.c2att1=0&ctx2.c2att1=0&inu53e.current.c2att92=169&rcond38e.c2att1=25&var13e=US&rcond44e.c2att1=0&rcond186e.c2att92=169&rcond3e.c2att1=0&rcond28e.attN2B2F2EEF=3264&rcond189e.c2att1=0&ctx1.att21k=1&CRC=712559224

   Whatever, this shouldn’t be a problem, I used a search engine. I’m also never going to send this to anyone, right?
   

4. I find the S243HL model, click it and wait for the fancy sliding and fading effects. And wait. And wait.
5. This must be a problem because of the URL.
   1. Go to Acer homepage.
   2. Browse products, monitors.
   3. Nice and shorter URL this time. Click again on my model.
   4. Wait.
6. Then this must be a problem because of Firefox. Switch to Chrome. Wait.
7. The damn thing must have been built for IE. Open IE. Wait.
8. Javascript problem maybe? Disable javascript. No fallback whatsoever…

In the end I believe that it is definitely somehing bad I’ve done. Maybe I didn’t click on something, I didn’t use the correct Firefox version or I have a weird IP address.