Jennifer, I think you're 100% correct in suggesting an alternative to the proposed design.
Speaking just as a user of the web, rather than a IxD practitioner, I can tell you that would tick me off! When I've had that sort of thing happen to me I will almost always just say, "forget it," and not bother going any further. The issue is not that someone wants my information - I get it, nothing is truly free. The problem is the dishonesty. If a link says, "Read article," or "Download file," I darn well expect to get that result. Otherwise say, "Sign up to access articles," or something of that nature. I've found the key to good interactions - between people, people and website, applications, businesses, etc, are expectations. What does each participant expect, and are those expectations met? If you lie by omission (i.e. I'm not telling you ahead of time there is a form to fill out first) then you have guaranteed to not meet the expectations of the other party in the interaction. It's simply bad practice as a person, a business, or a designer to knowingly mislead. I'm not saying it doesn't happen - it's far too common. And on the scale of dishonesty in business these days this hardly qualifies as a minor infraction. But that's not an excuse to do the wrong thing. Tell your client to entice with honesty. Customers will appreciate it, and happy customers are repeat customers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=44570 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
