[Sigia-l] should I violate a usability principle?

[Samantha Bailey]

Hi,

Background:
I'm working on a project where we're going to migrate our customer
base from one kind of login (password only) to a more secure login
(user ID & password). This change is being initiated due to internal
security concerns *and* due to the requests of a minority of
customers. We know from history and research that the change is going
to be somewhat painful for customers regardless of how well we do our
job (both in terms of communications & the quality of the new
process).

Dilemma:
We are planning to have a 45 day transition period where users will
get a message when they login alerting them to the fact that we'll be
making the change and encouraging them to sign up for a user ID and
password then & there, but they'll also be able to ignore that and
click through to the site. Here's where it gets tricky--customarily we
*always* give the option not to see messages again to reduce
annoyance. These kinds of messages have ranged from pop-up blocker
alerts to special offers (we're a subscription service where different
kinds of content are priced differently). We are thinking about *not*
including the "don't show me this again" checkbox in this
circumstance.

Reasoning:
The primary reason I'm thinking about not including the check box is
that my knowledge of the customer base suggests that the vast majority
will check "don't show me this" and click through without setting up
user ID and password. That means that on the day we actually turn the
system over so that all users are forced to create a user ID and
password we'll have a huge number of people interacting with the
system and calling in when they have problems (or just calling to
complain). It seems possible that by showing the annoying popup we can
nudge more people to create a user ID and password earlier and/or at
least have it sink through that a change is coming.

What do you think? Is this kind of willful disregard for a standard
usability principle pure evil, or do the ends justify the means?
Whether you think it's good or bad, have you ever done it & what
happened?

Thanks!

Samantha

-- 
Samantha Bailey | samantha at baileysorts.com | http://baileysorts.com