90 percent of everything : Usability Blog

Written by Harry Brignull

Interesting piece of copy in this Windows Vista dialog box. Basically it’s saying:

1. Type your product key in now.
2. But you don’t have to.
3. But if you don’t, you could loose everything.
4. And you might have to buy another copy of Vista.
5. So on second thoughts, you probably should enter your product key in now after all.

Luckily, due to the way people scan-read when using a computer, few will actually read this paragraph and most will skip ahead to fill in their product key without even noticing the content.

Thanks to Peter Otto for picking up on this.

“Oh shucks Sandy, you’re such a card! I wasn’t going to, but since you said it was going to be delightful, I think I diddly-will sign up to your newsletter.”

… For the record, when you want to entice newsletter subscriptions for your site, tell the user (i) how often it will be sent in real terms, (ii) what will actually be in it, and (iii) as a bonus, link to an example of your newsletter so they can see what they’d be signing up to.

> visit IWantSandy.com