[Sigia-l] white paper: "The Top 25 Things Every Content Management Vendor Should Know About What their Customers Want"

[Todd R.Warfel]

This is something we've seen quite often in usability testing. When 
items request/require an email address, they wonder why. They fear the 
email address will be given away and they'll start getting as much junk 
mail in the email box as they do in their mailbox at home. Average 
users aren't savvy enough to try fake addresses or phone numbers. 
They'll leave them blank first. Then they'll often either grumble about 
entering their information (if it doesn't explain why it's necessary) 
or leave.

Typically, it's only the savvy users that enter fake data (e.g. email 
or phone).

On Thursday, April 3, 2003, at 02:30  PM, Christopher Fahey [askrom] 
wrote:

> Anyway, this makes me wonder exactly how many people:
>
>   1) Have a fit every time they see an email request
>     form and immediately take a hostile attitude
>     towards the site and the company.
>   2) Automatically attempt to enter phony email
>     addresses into such requests (such as z at z.z) to
>     'sneak under the radar'.
>   3) Maintain a phony email account for such
>     purposes.
>   4) Unquestioningly enter their real email
>     addresses.

Cheers!

Todd R. Warfel

_//message first [method second]
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_//user experience architect
Information architecture
Interaction design
Usability analysis
[P] (607) 339-9640
[E]  twarfel at messagefirst.com
[w] http://www.messagefirst.com
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In theory, theory and practice are the same,
but in practice, they're not -- anonymous