I loved this handbag on Pinterest. Possibly wanting to purchase one I followed to the website, only to be greeted with this dialog box to log in. I didn’t want to log in I only wanted to see the purse. There is the convenient “sign in with Facebook” button… one click and “presto” I can see what I came for. SO TEMPTING! Do I click it?
I didn’t click it… this time. I have not decided if I want accounts of mine sharing passwords. I ponder, where is the graceful exit? I can’t even look at your merchandise without you insisting I give you my email address? Geez, I am free to look around in a brick and mortar store, why can’t I look at your stuff that you want to sell?
Where is the usability in this method? Do strategic marketing maneuvers supersede good usability? Or is this a marketing genius to force a user to fork over account information? I think it was a tougher sell to get user info in the past, but with the popularity of these “sign in with facebook” buttons it’s making collecting user data easy. People are willing to just click. So with the birth of the “one-click-sign-in”, so does it give birth to another usability pattern: the ability to hold the goods hostage until you CLICK IT.
