Probably not vibe-coded, but still scary

This is the sort of thing that scares the hell out of me. I’m not saying this is vibe-coded, but it’s the sort of “did you stop to think this through at all?” that just exemplifies a lot of lazy software lately.

This is the registration for a doctor’s office. I was able to have a whole surgery (scheduled, not emergency) WITHOUT filling out this form, but now because I’m going in to have a few stitches removed, I have to run this gauntlet.

It wants to know about my allergies. It’s never heard of some of them (I promise you, they’re not exotic), and there’s no “fill in the blank” option.

It wants to know about my immediate family’s medical history. I start typing “cancer,” and the auto-fill thing has ZERO idea what I could be talking about. And again, no “fill in the blank” option.

But in the demographic section, there’s this gem:

This is it asking my “preferred language.” This is a HUGE list. In addition to the sensible option of “English”, and many sensible other options, there are non-sensible options all over the place.

“Esperanto” is actually an interesting option. I realize there are people who speak it, but my understanding is that it’s not anybody’s first language. I’m wondering how many people prefer it to their native language, enough so that it’s relevant on a medical form?

Elsewhere, “Latin” is an option. A dead language, but somebody who’s been to medical (or law) school has at least encountered a tiny bit of it.

But it gets better. I can specify that I actually only speak “old English” (which it helpfully notes is from a pretty solid 1000-ish years ago). Which is a completely different language from modern English, of course.

You’ll note in the screenshot I can tell it that I actually only speak “ancient Egyptian.” Depending on what I mean by “ancient,” that could be a language nobody has spoken for a couple thousand years.

If I look elsewhere, “Sumerian” is an option on the table. I can’t tell you how tempted I was to pick “Sumerian,” because I want to know what a doctor’s office in the Midwest is going to do when somebody walks in that only speaks a 2000 year old dead language. A language, from my understanding, where even the academics who study it aren’t 100% sure how it should sound when spoken out loud.

My wife, hearing that I was considering this, told me I should - and I quote - “be nice.” :smiley:

But as thoughtful as it is to accommodate the many (so many they are - I assure you - uncountable) speakers of ancient Sumerian that live in Wisconsin, shouldn’t the first requirement of medical check-in software be able to record things actually relevant to my medical condition?

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Classic “tell me you laid off you entire UI/UX team without telling me you laid them off” type of interface.

This really underlines the fact that they are collecting data that nobody looks at ever again. You can pick anything – “I am an ancient egyptian who only speaks aztec” — and nothing will change in the downstream interactions with the organisation.

Probably… or, you’ll get all follow-up text messages in aztec, helpfully translated by a LLM. :slight_smile:

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Looks like dev used the library of congress standard list of languages, probably without realising it was for indexing books rather than the spoken word. A five minute test would have highlighted the issue but these things happen I guess.

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A real gem! I would go with Sumarian and see what happens

Reminds me a bit of my last blood draw when I had to fill in a form that included questions about my sexual prefences. WTF?

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That’s exactly how you should respond. See if anyone actually notices.

And see if they respond to you in ancient Egyptian.

Claude can help with anything

𒀀𒊭𒈾 𒄩𒀠 𒉈𒅁𒁀 𒋗𒌦𒆠𒀝 𒈾𒀊 𒄭𒄩𒉌𒊏

u hal-ik nap-ir sunki-k tep-ti-ri, li-an-ra kuti-k huta-k appa siyan-k kuši-r halpi-k-ka.

Translation: “I, humble servant of the great land, request that a speaker of the noble tongue of Elam be present at all future visits, as the physicians’ cuneiform is illegible and their bedside manner predates the fall of Susa.”

More seriously - Claude is spot-on here:

The real question is: if someone actually selects Elamite, does the office have to provide an interpreter under federal language access requirements? Because that compliance officer is going to have a very bad day trying to locate one. There are maybe a dozen people alive who can partially read it, and none of them are conversationally fluent — on account of no one has been since the Persians conquered Elam.

Also love that it’s sitting right between Ekajuk and English like it’s perfectly normal. The vendor clearly just dumped the entire ISO 639 language code list into a dropdown and called it a day. Somewhere out there, a software developer got paid to include support for a civilization that collapsed before concrete was invented.

This would make a fantastic slide for a health IT presentation on “why default vendor configurations matter.”

https://claude.ai/share/675a5c68-8428-4ede-8ece-530b49ff975d

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Whoa!

I gather this provider didn’t want to spring for a professionally-developed medical practice management / electronic health record SAAS package.

I’d be extremely reluctant to enter any sensitive information into that form—if they can’t manage a drop-down box for preferred language, I’m not sure I’d trust the security back-end.

Along the same lines, when the British Royal Opera House first enabled online registration, the “title” field included, in addition to the standard Mr., Mrs., Ms., and Miss, the whole range of available hereditary and honorary titles, from Duke to Dame.

The scary thing is, this isn’t a random small office - this is a major medical provider in my area.

On the plus side, at least some of those could theoretically apply to at least one person. :slight_smile:

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Not sure I’d encourage you to get medical help at this practice. They may use leeches and bleed you.

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Software that serves the healthcare space in the US is notoriously bad. And by “bad” I mean “user-unfriendly.” UX is often an afterthought, if considered at all. I’d wager all the money in my pocket that a vibe-coded registration app would not have made this particular language selection blunder.

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That’s pretty bad when the argument is that vibe coding would have produced a better result. :slight_smile:

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Along the same lines, when the British Royal Opera House first enabled online registration, the “title” field included, in addition to the standard Mr., Mrs., Ms., and Miss, the whole range of available hereditary and honorary titles, from Duke to Dame.

My mind went to exactly the same place. You can tell from the Mac UI that I took this screenshot some years before vibe coding took off.

Good to know that Dowager Marchionesses are catered for. Also, Camino browser RIP.

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After the revolution, the titles will be Citoyen, товарищ, and 同志. :wink:

Yeah, you must an opportunity here! You should’ve picked all the nonsense options.

These days I go to the People’s Republic of Opera North.

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Alas, the People’s Republic of New York City Opera has crumbled into a minor oligarch’s plaything with a website that is red in all the wrong ways.