Comments on Guiding Principles for Providing “Remember Me” Personalization

Karl Groves — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:53:02 GMT

All excellent points, though it is important for readers to understand that there may be extenuating circumstances which must be addressed for regulatory compliance on. A few years ago, I was E-Commerce Manager at a large credit union in the DC area. Compliance with NCUA (and other) regulations often seemed like a moving target, as credit unions often lag far behind banks in their ability to serve their members electronically. Though there were no firm guidelines at the time regarding cookies and remembering users, this would definitely be on the list of things I’d clarify with my compliance officer.

Chris Collingridge — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:53:01 GMT

For information stored in the EU, you’ll also need to consider data protection regulations. While your legal department should know about this, it seems to be a little bit of a black hole in some US companies, as there really is no equivalent binding legislation in the USA.

If it’s all in the cookie, I’d imagine there’s no problem (as you’re not controlling any data), but if information in cookies links to personal information on your servers then an issue may arise.

Exactly what the situation is for information collected from people in the EU and stored in the US, I don’t know. A useful (if sometimes pretty complicated) resource for this is www.ico.gov.uk.

Meg Peters — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:55 GMT

Thank you, Masood. You make a great point that the user interface should be designed thoughtfully so as not to overwhelm the user. I like to imagine “layers” of info that’s not all displayed but is easy to find if the user needs it.

An example on Marriott.com is the form for joining the Marriott Rewards loyalty program: https://marriott.com/rewards/createAccount/createAccountPa…

The boxes in the right column summarize and link to pop-up windows containing the privacy statement and info about security. This allows users to get key info on the join page, and it gives them access to more detailed info about privacy and security while they are considering whether they would like to provide personal info. This “layering” also keeps them within the context of their primary task: joining Marriott Rewards. Forrester cited this page as an example of best practices in a recent teleconference by Harley Manning titled “Beating The Three Web Design Challenges” (3/6/06).

The tricky part is deciding what info, and how much, to include where. Testing users is the best way to determine that.

Masood Nasser — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:55 GMT

Hello Meg,

Nice article. Shows a substantial amount of thought and research has gone into this article.

I have certain reservations though on the first guiding principle “Communicate openly and clearly about security and privacy”

Communicating that sort of information would be too overwhelming for a majority of your users, but then again lack of communication would also be hiding this information from the user, who has a right to know these. I think here that “How” the interface is “presented” also will make a very big impact on the user. Your thoughts on the same?

Meg Peters — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:55 GMT

Thanks for your insights, Chris. Possibly the strongest connection between the Guiding Principles and design behaviors and patterns is the need to design personalized experiences that support user needs and that balance those needs with business objectives (as you note).

Kudos on creating an effective framework for discussing and making decisions about interaction design. Our projects also tend to be incredibly complex, and it’s helpful to have objective criteria for evaluating “pieces” of the user experience. To refer to a Guiding Principle: “Make sure visual and verbal cues match the site’s performance…” Having this standard keeps discussion focused on the UE and prevents the team from getting sidetracked on design versus technical tangents.

Chris Ford — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:55 GMT

Hello Meg -

Great article.

I wonder where you see the connection between these ‘guiding principles’ and design behaviours and patterns? Our recent work has involved defining three layers of interaction design: The system model (describing the relationship between the users’ model of the system, the audience’s expectations and requirements, the project objectives and the client’s brand position), design behaviours (very similar to your guiding principles: strongly influenced by the brand position) and design patterns (recording our understanding of best-practice interactions – a high level of detail).

We’re finding that this level of ‘granularity’ in defining how the system should present interactions to the user extremely helpful, especially for large-scale systems. We’re also finding that the process of defining these three ‘levels’ allows us to involve different project teams/disciplines in the design process, sharing a common set of objectives and – as importantly – a common language.