[thelist] RE: checked vs. unchecked boxes

[Ken Schaefer]

So change it around, and out of the formerly happy 99.9% you now have
5% who find your site annoying because they have to manually select a
whole bunch of things that 99.9% of the world wants.

The idea that everything needs to be unchecked because somehow this
puts the choice in the user's hands is illogical, but seems to have
taken on properties of religious dogma.

You can have the box checked - as long as the user can uncheck the
box, they still have choice.

Whether you should check the box depends:
a) whether you think most users would prefer to have the box checked
(I think a box asking if people want a "tax invoice" - these are
necessary for businesses in Australia to claim GST back on business
inputs, would be checked)

b) what the business model is for your site. 

Remember: customers are only right up until the point where it no
longer makes sense for your organisation to cater to their needs -
something I learned from my marketing classes. Given enough customers
there will always be some that you can't satisfy no matter how much it
costs you - at some point you gotta tell them to go elsewhere (though,
not in so many words).

Cheers
Ken


On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 12:56:47 -0700, Courtenay <court3nay at gmail.com> wrote:
> Its the 0.01 that write the angry letters to those higher-up.
> 
> 
> --
>