Yahoo! Design Patterns and the E-Mail Sign-Up Form

My mentor, Diane Deseta at UXMentors assigned me an exercise to examine how Yahoo! implements their  design pattern library throughout their site.  This is one of several posts drawn from that assignment.

The exercise brought to light how complicated it is to follow conventions when there are competing motivations behind a page.  In several instances, the patterns were ignored.  Whether these divergences were created by or inherited by the recently fired SVP for User Experience Design Tim Parsey is impossible to know.  The end result left my brow furrowed.

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The first part of the exercise was to look at a form on Yahoo.com and to determine which aspects of the design patterns were used.  I chose to study the Yahoo! Email Sign-up page.  I figured this would be a heavily scrutinized form, and thus something that had some interesting properties related to the espoused standards on the Design Pattern page.  I was right.

This form provides opportunities for three different patterns to be used; but, as expected, a couple of them were ignored.

Talk Like a Person - SOMEWHAT APPLIED - This design pattern suggests Yahoo's content should "resist the urge to write like a grad student or a bureaucrat." Although the language used on the form is clear (ex: "The ID you select lets you sign in to all Yahoo! products and will be used for your free Yahoo! email address") it is far from casual and has the feel of a pitch that has been worn down over dozens of iterations; however, this same pattern encourages the use of contractions and when picking a password, the phrase "don't use your name or Yahoo! ID" appears.

I expect the mandate to speak casually was ignored due to the heavy scrutiny the page has received, the likelihood that anyone working on it has stared at this language hundreds of times, and the desire to be both precise and careful with the wording.

Your Vs. My - FOLLOWED - This pattern encourages the use of the personal pronoun "your" over "my" as the use of ‘my’ “implies egocentrism and discourages sharing." On first glance, one would assume that since email is used primarily to share things with others, the use of "my" is incorrect, as it would subtly disincline users from sharing.

The same pattern, however, says that the use of ‘my’ is acceptable "for private, individual environments" and though email is obviously a medium for sharing information, the sign-up form is not.  If anything, the sign up form is to be seen by only the user, and thus the use of ‘my’ makes sense here.

Terms of Service - IGNORED - Both the letter and the spirit of this design pattern are ignored.  The intent is to prevent the user from feeling dumb for not clicking an 'agree' button or ticking a box when accepting the terms of service.  To prevent this, the design pattern encourages a passive opt-in model for the terms of service composed of five elements that work in tandem:

·       Consent to the agreement is expressed in the call-to-action button ('Agree and Continue').

·       The form offers an option to exit without agreeing ('Cancel' or 'Don't Agree / Cancel Order').

·       A statement makes clear that submitting the form constitutes agreement to the terms ('By clicking you agree...').

·       The terms of service (TOS) text is available via a clearly labeled hypertext link (Terms of Service').

·       The TOS copy is supplied in a printable format.

Notably, the pattern explicitly says, "removing any one defeats the purpose of the pattern." But, the sign in form does exactly that.  While the 2nd through 5th elements are followed, the button simply reads "Create my Account." 

So, why ignore this when changing the button to read "Agree and create my account" would be so easy?  The scrutiny that such a heavily used form likely receives probably plays a large part in this: in the race to get and keep subscribers against Gmail and Hotmail (Yahoo! is currently ranked 1st domestically and 3rd internationally in terms of subscribers according to 2012 ComScore data) anything that may lead to a closer read from people wondering what they're agreeing to (and potential failure to complete the form) is likely discouraged.  

To verify whether drawing attention to the ToS may be an issue, I studied the competitors’ sign-up forms.  Hotmail uses an "I agree" button for new account creators, and Gmail has a box for new users to tick so they actively agree to TOS before clicking the "Next Step" button.  Perhaps Yahoo! believes this deviation from its own pattern is a point of difference that makes them a leader.  

If so, it is a dishonest trick, and builds the foundation of the relationship with their users on a calculated deception.