On Jul 6, 2009, at 6:51 AM, eva kaniasty wrote:
I don't buy the idea that users don't look for sign-in. I'd be more
inclined to believe that sign-in has become a convention in itself
that
anyone who has used the web for any length of time is familiar with.
Whether or not it conceptually makes sense to sign in first, I think
users
become trained to do things a certain way without thinking about it,
and
removing that functionality seems off-base. I am not arguing that
sign-in
shouldn't be seamlessly integrated into checkout as well, I just
think that
it doesn't make sense to remove it as a separate function.
I completely buy it. I've never looked for a sign in option at Amazon
We talk about (gripe about) software coders who create UIs that serve
their programmatic model rather than the user? Well, you're doing the
same thing here: "I know that a user is going to have to sign in to
complete the transaction, so I want to know where that control is and
how it operates and how to sign out."
But what Amazon arguably wants to be is a Wal*Mart (god forgive me for
saying so!). At such a store, by walking in the door, you are
assumed to be a customer, someone who is going to buy something, even
if that's just a candy bar. They don't have a guard at the door
saying "What's your name? Show me your credit card!", but instead
they have someone saying "Welcome to the store! Enjoy shopping!"
By assuming that if you're there, you're going to buy something -- and
if not this time, the next one -- they take that "Show me your ID"
gruffness out of the equation, saving it for the time when it is
actually needed, at the purchase transaction. And in doing so, they
remove/reduce the opportunities for users to get fed up with the
questioning and just leave.
And in contrast, today I did my monthly visit to the Science Fiction
Book Club website to say "Nope, don't what this month's offered books,
don't send them." This site *doesn't* remember that I've been there
before. So I have to go to the upper right corner to sign in -- to a
link usually partially off-screen because they assume I'll have a non-
portrait shaped browser window (but I do), rather than a username/
password control. And that takes me to a page where I have to choose
either to Sign In or create a new account -- again, not to a username/
password control. And that takes me to a username/password control...
which have my saved credentials already filled in. Talk about wanting
the returning customer to feel like they are annoying you! (Actually,
I fib slightly. That's the flow from a couple months ago. they've at
least merged the 2nd and 3rd screens, which reduces the annoyance by a
factor of 2, but they still don't put it on the front page or sign me
in automatically, still making it 4 times as annoying as Amazon's
method.)
-- Jim
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