The Seattle Times Company Account Center
The Seattle Times Network Account Login/Registration
Registration requirements were reduced to user name, e-mail, and password. Clarity was given as to which sites were supported by user accounts.
Account Profile
Readers can add to, modify, or cancel their own account information. Support was provided for older, more robust account profiles.
The Seattle Times E-mail Subscriptions
Supporting features specific to the site a reader was browsing, yet maintaining connection to other services.
NWautos Saved Searches
Providing readers direct access to features on NWautos, such as saved search criteria for future use.
NWsource Saved Classified Listings
Providing access to saved listings in NWsource classifieds while maintaining access to all available network features.
Link: The Seattle Times Company registration & account center
Responsibilities
interface & visual design, information architecture, XHTML, XML/XSLT, JavaScript, CSS, PHP
The task
The Seattle Times Company registration was, in its inception, meant to support the Seattle Times news site and reader subscriptions to the printed edition. As the company began growing its family of brands, features requiring reader authentication were added independently of each other and the experience quickly became confusing and burdensome.
Our primary goal was to reduce the barrier of entry for registration. Supporting print subscriptions in the past required a slew of information that today's primarily online readers wouldn't bother with. In order to do this, reduced registration process to the bare minimum that was needed to use most of the features within the network - user name, e-mail, and password. When a feature required extra user information, we politely asked for it.
Connecting the dots
Though the Seattle Times maintains a family of similarly-branded sites, not all of the sites are connected by a single user authentication due to business requirements. We needed to clearly show which sites were connected through registration, while also supporting the family of brands. We accomplished this by implementing a pervasive "network navigation" that followed the user in all areas of their account, showing them their activity, and also which sites had separate registrations.
Another pervasive tool that we added was a user recognition key, which appears on all sites connected to registration. This common piece of functionality improved the reader's ability to recognize they were logged in and access their account.
Shining through
Being outdated and pieced together over time, the registration pages were rife with accessibility issues and messy code. We rebuilt everything from the ground up with PHP, proper document hierarchy, accessible forms, valid XHTML, and XML/XSLT.
The redesign of the Seattle Times Company network registration not only made accessing accounts simpler, but also improved the interaction with the variety of site features. At a glance, a reader can see what is available to them, what their own activity is, and recognize a connection to the other brands in the network.
