So today, I'm reviewing accessdna.com, a site which promises to let you "know your genetics." I guess we'll see how this claim stands up. Off I head over to the site with firefox 3.03.
As I sign up for a new account, I find my first (minor) complaint. Tabbing to the next field does not work on the sign up form, it sends my cursor up to the sign in fields! Being a keyboard centric user who hates all things mouse-related, this irks me a bit. But on we go.
On the upside of the sign up form, they allow you to choose your own security question instead of a generic one. Those of you who know me well know it bugs me when the only options are "mothers maiden name" and "first school you went to" since this information is technically of public record, and therefore vulnerable. Nice to see some better security, especially dealing with my genetics! Moving on, after registration I find the expected email in my mailbox, but not with a confirmation link to confirm I am the owner of this address. Another downside for me, but lets move away from the registration now and see what the site functionality holds out for us.
Now, we move on to a series of questions outlining who I am and where I come from. The style of the forms is pleasing to the eyes (honestly, the whole site is rather pleasant to look at as far as I'm concerned.) but I quickly find myself wondering how many more pages I'll be going through here. On the other hand, the separation of pages is sensible and doesn't feel random.
After completing the surveys and forms, I find myself with a personalized report which includes information on where to go for genetic testing of various kinds, including some locations that offer free testing for certain things. Very interesting, especially with my slightly curious genetic history.
One further thing I noticed was on the downloadable report (which was in PDF format), there were quite a few stray HTML codes (mostly ) making it look slightly unprofessional. I'll let this slide as the whole service is presently in beta, but it does need to be fixed and is likely caused by a misconfigured PDF converter.
All in all, an interesting and potentially informative site. If they fix the few bugs there (especially the tab bug I mentioned) it would be nice, but these don't directly detract from the usability of the site for most users. Honestly my biggest complaint is not requiring confirmation of email ownership, but this might be a minor detail depending on how often they send mail and/or resell mailing lists. Hopefully they don't do etiher without some form of confirmation.
