I remember Ideopia’s first business phone, playing with numbers and their corresponding letters on the keypad, hoping on hope to hit a dirty word, e.g. 1-800-BITCHNADS, the phone company wouldn’t catch. Now these hybrid numbers are usability nightmares that simply annoy customers.
1. They have to ‘translate’ letters to numbers.
2. International customers have different letters or none at all.
3. On PDAs, Blackberries and cell phones, it’s cumbersome to switch between a number and a letter.
4. Mobile phones now have expanded Qwerty keyboards that don’t adhere to a manufacturing standard, and thus have letters that correspond to numbers in ways you never intended.