I was recently mucking about with my profile on Facebook and accidentally set my Birthday to 1910 (first year in the list). It threw me back an error message saying “Please enter your real birthday.”. I found this extremely odd, just I fiddled about a bit with the birthdates. As it turns out — Facebook gives you the option of being born in 1910 — but you can’t use it. It doesn’t matter if you were born Jan 1, 1910 or Dec 31, 1910 — it kicks back with the same error. Of course it is extremely unlikely anyone using Facebook was born in 1910 (as they would be 108 years old) — but what is the point of giving you an option you can’t be used?? Thats just shitty user design, right there.
Facebook, you fail User Design 101. Never give the users an option they can’t use.
