Privacy, Privacy, Privacy...
Not a very long time ago I studied Human Computer Interaction for a quarter. Not saying how much I learned in the class, even after the course I still keep noticing useability issues of everything in my everyday life.
Last week I went to a ticket office to buy a ticket for a show. There was a line with many people waiting. The sales person in the ticket counter asked the same question loudly to every single one: "What's your address and phone number, please?"
First of all, many of us may concern about why they are collecting such personal information. In ohter words, how they will use the information. Some may also concern about the security of the information stored in their systems. For example, whether they will disclose the information to any third party or not. As the result, at least they should explicitly state they would use the information properly and would not disclose to any third party.
Second, they asked everyone for personal information in speaking, which means all others in the line could hear the information. This is actually disclosing their personal information to many third parties. Nobody knows what others in the line do. Any people in the line can simply record the voice containing personal information to a mobile or portable device, then use or distribute/disclose the information illegally in the future.
In such situation, I guess a lot of people would not provide their real address and phone number. Then from the ticket company's point of view, many of the personal information they collected would be invalid. Then they cannot do what they intended to do with such information.
A Better Design
1. Privacy and disclosure statements are necessary.
2. In such privacy and disclosure statements, must explicitly state how the information will be used.
3. Provide a form for everyone to fillout, including their address and phone number, and explicitly print the privacy and disclosure statements on the form.
By doing so, though there must still be people who don't want to write their true information, at least all people are doing the ticket-buying process with comfort. They don't have to worry about how others in the line will hear their personal information. And similarly, they can at least assume the company will use the information properly, as stated in the explicit privacy and disclosure statements on the form.