Lotto online

— Published February 4th, 2010  |  by Rosarie O'Regan

A whole lotto love? An online lotto review

Good news: you can finally play lotto online (no more excuses for not winning the lotto now). So I took a tour of the site, to see how the experience rates.

It starts off well - the homepage displays a nice graphic explaining the registration process in only 5 steps:

But alarm bells start ringing when I see that in step 5, I must post in a photo ID and a copy of the application form. Normally, I'd give up at that point, but I continue on anyway to see what this is all about.

The Registration/Login page

This is a bit of a mess. It's clear where you need to log in, but where you register is hidden. It shouldn't be, especially because this is a new service and, at first, more people will be registering than logging in. The ads for the games are scattered all around the page, a typical distracting gambling-esque layout. If the games were placed vertically in a row, it would help focus the eye more, look cleaner and the folks at the National Lottery wouldn't have to delete one game - no compromises, better homepage.

Step 1 - The small print

Terms and Conditions are always a necessary evil. Here, they aren't too bad; the intro is in plain english at least. But there are ways to make Ts and Cs more bearable, and one of them is making it clear how much longer you have to endure them, i.e. a progress bar. In this case, the progress bar is barely visible. If it stood out more and the 'Continue' and 'Cancel' buttons were more differentiated from each other (as for all pages in the process), then this Ts and Cs experience would be far less painful.

Step 2: Account information

The form for filling out your personal details yields no problems. And kudos to them for having an option to play games on you mobile. Even though there are no major usability issues in the registration process, I get the feeling that the form would benefit from some graphics design touch-ups. The bolding, mixed alignment and lack of white space toward the end of the form made it seem more complicated than it actually is.

The annoying bit

The first time I try to register for this, it is about 10 p.m. When I click continue on the above screen I get this error message.

Closed?! Since when do things close on the internet? I assume it has something to do with gambling laws in Ireland, so I go to the FAQs and Terms and Conditions in the footer to find out more. Although they have a reasonable enough FAQ section, they don't say a word about closing times. Then I email support to which they reply "Our interactive service is only available from 7 am to 10pm, the same times as lotto is available in retailers."

That's something important enough to put up on the site methinks. No point luring people in if they can't follow through. And more broadly, why have a website, if it operates under the same constraints as the retail business?

Steps 3 and 4

After you register, you must login to play. This process — the 'review my details,' 'set login details' and 'login hints' pages — are straightforward, no major roadblocks.

Step 5 - Never going to happen!

Why would I post them a copy of my photo ID and a copy of the application form, when I could just go to the shop and buy a lotto ticket? Sometimes legalities not only get in the way of user experience, they stop it altogether.

The Games

Even though I'm not yet fully registered, I can still view the 'Games Lobby' page. But this page is not very compelling; I'm hardly incited to play.

The font is tiny. And that's how they choose to present the instructions on how to play.

On the plus side, I like that you can save your favorite lotto numbers. It's a good idea - and something you can't really do offline, neatly at least.

The verdict

Pros:

• No major form usability issues
• Mobile options
• Clear 5 step process (albeit the last step is a showstopper)
• Option to save your lotto numbers

Cons:

• The major one: you have to post a copy of your photo ID in order to continue
• Closing hours (they could at least present this up front)
• The registration isn't visible enough
• Tiny font for important instructions
• Visual design - the forms require a bit more finesse to enhance the user experience

And speaking of that visual design of the form, take for example the UK national lottery registration process:

Similar forms, similar questions, but the UK one just looks easier. And that's significant if you're trying to get people to do something online that they've always done offline.