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

[Charles Zicari]

Samantha,

In this context it makes perfect sense to suppress the "Don't show me
this again" functionality.  The message is not a friendly reminder.  But
you can craft the message so that it's less painful.  Message them that
this will only be shown for a limited time. 

Also, can you cookie them once they create a user ID and suppress the
reminder automatically if the cookie indicates an ID flag?

Charlie Zicari
Assoc. Creative Director - Information Architecture
Organic, Inc
212-827-2225
threeeminds.organic.com
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: sigia-l-bounces at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-bounces at asis.org] On
Behalf
> Of Samantha Bailey
> Sent: Friday, August 04, 2006 12:12 PM
> To: sigia-l at asis.org
> Subject: [Sigia-l] should I violate a usability principle?
> 
> 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
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> 
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