Web Payments Use Cases 1.0,W3C First Public Working Draft 16 April 2015

Congratulations on the Draft,

This is my first posting to this 'comments' list (I saw the 
announcement on the public-webpayments list).

I see the Draft specifically ask for comments from the 'general 
public' -- which I think includes me -- and so I will forge ahead with 
my reactions.

Overall presentation:

A. Viewed in my standard Browser (Firefox, Mac OS) the draft is 
peculiar in having not enough vertical spacing between the lines. I 
know some W3C documents do this, but it is annoying. HTML/CSS allows 
you to control line leading (vertical spacing) and I suggest you 
increase it to 1.3 or 1.4. It looks like it's at 1.0. This causes some 
of the link underlining to run through the tops of the characters in 
the line below, making them hard to read.

B. The choice of the words 'payer' and 'payee' is unfortunate; they 
are too similar and my mind reels in trying to separate them if there 
is a problem in interpretation. See for instance my concern with 
section 3.2 below; I think if the words had been easily separable -- 
like perhaps 'merchant' and 'customer', though I suspect there are 
objections for those as well -- then that section would have been 
easier to understand.


3.2 Negotiation of Payment Instruments

On first reading, it looks like there's an error in the second bullet 
point, which now reads:
"Selection of Payment Instruments. The payee selects one or more 
payment instruments that are available to the payer and are accepted 
by the payee."

Should it begin 'The payer selects...' instead of 'the payee 
selects...'?

If not, if it's correct as it stands, then I find it confusing because 
steps have been skipped; first the Payer Discovers and then the Payee 
Selects --- don't you have to Discover before you can select? So the 
steps should go Payee discovers, then payee selects; or Payer 
discovers, then Payer selects. Perhaps there are implied steps? If so 
they should be spelled out, I think. Anyway I'm confused. (And, see 
objection to terminology in 'overall' -- the similarity of the words 
doesn't help matters).


3.3 Payment Processing

As it stands:
"Verification of Available Funds. The payee may need to provide a 
proof of funds or a proof of hold to the payer before finalizing 
payment and delivery of the product."

This seems backwards. How can payee provide proof of funds to the 
payer? Isn't it the payer who has the funds? So the payer would 
provide the proof to the payee, no? Additional evidence: as the 
sentence is worded, the subject of 'finalizing' is 'payee'; so it's 
the 'payee' that's 'finalizing payment' -- is what the sentence says. 
Again, isn't the payer the one who is doing the paying? But this verb 
'finalizing' is conflated with 'delivery of the product' -- which is 
done by the payee, certainly. Perhaps steps are skipped?  Again 
confusing to me.


3.4  Delivery of Product/Receipt and Refunds

Typo error I believe: "Refunds. At time exceptions..." should be 
"Refunds. At time[s] exceptions..."


"Issue 3"

This sentence is nonsensical -- try making sense of the three 'is' verbs:
"General feedback is requested as to whether or not this section is 
helpful in grounding the payment phases and steps in a real world use 
case is helpful this early in the document."


4.2 Negotiation of Payment Instruments

Section 4.2 starts as I quote below:

"    Discovery of Accepted Schemes: Given where Jill lives, PayToParty 
offers her payment by credit card, debit card, the PayToParty loyalty 
card, and PayPal, but not Jill's favorite cryptocurrency (which she 
uses on other sites).
"    Selection of Payment Instruments: Jill pushes the "Pay Now to 
Party!" button and is presented with a number of options to pay, 
including her credit card, her PayToParty loyalty card (which is 
highlighted to remind her of the discount), and a PayPal account. 
There is also a gift card from PayToParty that she received for her 
birthday, but she chooses not to use it for this purchase. "

I'm attempting to match its flow with the problem I had in section 3.2 
above (are payer and payee reversed the 3.2 "Selection..." section?), 
and at first it seems I'm right (there's an error in 3.2), because 
'Jill pushes the...button' and she's obviously the payer. So 3.2 
should say 'The paye[r] selects one or more..."

But, hold on, another problem has cropped up as well -- in 4.2, when 
does PayToParty 'offer' her payment? Before or after she presses the 
button? Isn't the 'offer' actually after she presses the button? If 
so, then "Discovery..." in 4.2 is wrong -- it hasn't been offered yet. 
Or, again, are there steps missing that aren't listed?

In other words, it still seems possible that there are steps missed in 
3.2 that are not accurately reflected in 4.2 either; in which case I'm 
still not understanding what's happening (or at least, can't follow it 
in the given steps in either section).


4.3
By this time I was sufficiently confused that when I came to the 
Verification and Authorization of Transfer sections my eyes glazed 
over and I couldn't bring myself to try to work out what was going on 
-- although they seem innocuous enough, on the surface.

5 Assumptions

There is a subtle difference between 'use' and 'utilize', which I 
checked in the American Heritage Dictionary's synonyms section. It 
instructs that 'utilize' is for a narrower focus; and particularly for 
making it possible to use things that otherwise couldn't be used. On 
this basis, the first 'utilize' under 'Connectivity' is not correct 
and should be reverted to the simpler 'use'. (In contrast, the 
'utilize' under 'Registered Payment Instruments' appears correct.)


6.1.1
Discovery of Offer
A. Why is there a Privacy point under Kiosk, but not under Website? 
Are people going to Websites not entitled to privacy?

6.1.1 non-essential:
Hold Funds
Now Reads:
"Motivation
"    By design, some transactions do not reach completion. Some are 
merely there to protect the payee (e.g., in the event of questionable 
judgment by the payer)."

First, I assume you mean 'some [hold funds] are merely there..."; but 
even if so, I'm still confused by the rest of the sentence.

Is it the payee who is protected (could this be another inversion of 
payer/payee error?). If not, if it's the payee being protected, what 
sort of questionable judgment is possible in this circumstance? 
Perhaps you mean that the payer changes their mind? That they question 
their own judgment? But this is not the same thing as the payer having 
'questionable judgment', which would be a decision by some third party 
that the payer's judgment was questionable. I suggest re-writing to 
clarify...


6.1.2.1
Registration-less
I don't agree that this case is non-essential. I would like it moved 
to essential. It seems core.
6.1.3
Coupons & Loyalty cards
Especially given that Registration-less is non-essential, I object 
strongly to this one being essential.
Taken together (6.1.2.1 and 6.1.3), it looks like a strong bias in 
favour of the merchant over the customer. I think this is a mistake.


6.2.2
Manual Selection

By this point I'm beginning to realize the level of detail is too much 
-- I can't read the same format over and over and still comprehend it.

When I hit the list of many names -- Marie, Claire, Veronique, Seth, 
David -- I couldn't go on. I began skimming quickly down the page...I 
drifted into TL;DR mode...

So, yes, I think there are too many examples...(I believe you asked 
about this earlier).


Overview thought: maybe the four main steps that are laid out at the 
start --
     3.1 Negotiation of Payment Terms
     3.2 Negotiation of Payment Instruments
     3.3 Payment Processing
     3.4 Delivery of Product/Receipt and Refunds

Maybe these should divide the entire document.

Of course there would have to be an abstract or summary of them at the 
top, but after that, instead of iteratively going through all four 
steps -- what -- thirty-five times? -- I suggest distributing the 
examples throughout the four sections. Then when a person (reader) 
feels they 'get it', they understand that step, they can skim down 
into the next step; and so on, through the four main stages. Maybe 
this will give a feeling of completeness for the reader, of achieving 
a series of goals -- I understand step 1; then step 2, then 3, then 4 
---. As it is, I feel like I'm spinning my wheels each time; I'm 
always going through the same steps again.

Or maybe the layout is fine, and it's just that there are too many 
examples for one sitting. And maybe that's necessary; maybe it's a 
two-sitting document. Not sure.

But I do know that I'm unlikely to come back to try to read the parts 
in the last 40% of the document that I've skimmed.


Steven Rowat

Received on Friday, 17 April 2015 00:05:10 UTC