Whilst filling out a form on the Royal Mail site this morning, I came across this heresy of form design: the self-negating checkbox...
This required careful (re)reading to ensure that:
- I was actually opting out of the first set of marketing questions
- I did not have to tick the second group of boxes as these were default opt-out
- ... I was not actually going crazy
The mixed metaphor is confusing enough to me, but I was under the impression that (in EU countries at least) the legal requirement was for all marketing preference questions to now be opt-in by default, not opt-out?
Has any notable comparative research been done into opt-in versus opt-out options on forms to see which are more annoying / easier to understand? The inconsistency across sites just from one country is mindboggling, never mind an apparent lack of international standard. Is it just me failing to wrap my head around things still being opt-out by default or does nobody else actually care?