giving the user a CHOICE on a form
It never surprises me how, even in 2008, websites still force users in to either giving away information they would rather not provide, or insisting that they sign up to some form of regular contact.
To become a member of a certain group or community, providing your credentials should always be enough. Providing a valid email address and clicking on an approval email is fine, and giving additional information should always be optional. However, I came across a form today that seems all too common.
On the Imperial College Finance Society website, when creating a membership profile, users are asked to input a username and email address, and some optional extras. However, when it comes to the Society’s regular newsletters, users are given a choice – to only say yes!
The field says, “Subscribe to Imperial College Finance Society?” – options – “Yes” and that’s it! You can’t untick the radio box, you are either a subscriber or you are not allowed to join.
Bad practice? Yes. Poor usability? Yes. And bloody annoying. I wonder how many members don’t complete the form……
November 14th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Wow… I’ve never seen a radio button with only one choice like that before. That’s just plain weird.
Of course, for those who know how you can always use TamperData to mess with that form. Untick the “Yes” or change it to a “No” or – better yet – remove it entirely.
I’d love to see what they do with a form submission that doesn’t have that “Yes” selected.
November 14th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
TamperData looks cool. Didn’t know about that add-on.
Even still, the 0.1% of users that know about that firefox extension shouldn’t have to go to those extremes! Technically illegal?