Caught on CAPTCHA - The Conversion Prevention Tool

I understand perfectly well the purpose of a CAPTCHA test, although I admit I had to look up what it stood for. According to Wikipedia it is a  contrived acronym for- Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA

My frustation with CAPTCHA tests boiled over recently though, when I found myself on two seperate occasions unable to complete an action through my inability to correctly decipher the cryptic jungle of letters left by Google. Ok yes, I do think that Google possesses the most difficult one of all.

Most frustratingly, after each failed attempt, all fields cleared meaning I had to start from scratch. Now remember the CAPTCHA test is only there to prove I am a human being, it is not there to test my powers of deduction. On this occasion I was forced to continue, needing the new account and therefore putting up with the pain. However, a couple of weeks beforehand I was asked to validate my status on Twitter (when following someone) and found once again I couldn't decipher the letters - so I gave up.

Remember your priority when designing web pages and user journeys is always to get a visitor to complete an action - so think carefully about which CAPTCHA you install making sure it is easy to use, it is not there to prevent visitors completing a positive action which you'd like them to complete.

Visit http://www.captcha.net/ and look at their example, even I can read that one.