Often sites that strive to be all user-centred trip over on the legal text. It’s as if all too hard, and hey, who reads all that stuff anyway. Which says to me that it is more for butt covering than being helpful.
But does it have to be that way?
OXO’s Ts&Cs were are great example of how it doesn’t have to be so.
And this recent example of Linux provider Red Hat cutting their Service Level Agreement (SLA) from 7 pages of legalese to 1 page of simple information:
Meanwhile, back at Sensis…
Recently when designing a new and coming identity system, I was determined that the registration page shouldn’t have the near ubiquitous teeny-weeny scrolling box of legal text that no-one reads, just complicates the interface and says everything in the opposite direction of “we want to be helpful, simple and straight with you”.
So here’s the proposed design:
The text is just made-up at the moment, but you get the idea. Hopefully someone can read this and think “ah, that’s what it means if I sign up to this site”. The concept has in-principle support from our legal department, but I’m sure the devil will be in the detail. Fingers crossed as we fight the good fight.
