Once I read that if you were to read all the Terms and Conditions, Privacy Policy and similar documents that you ideally need to read before using software or online services in a given year, you'd spend a good month of your life doing it without going to work.
Let's face it, most people know about Facebook's privacy policy through news scandals but the vast majority of people, wouldn't bother.
Would there be a better way to present users with simpler terms and conditions that they would actually read? Or are beyond the point where we can re-teach users about enjoyable documents crafted to improve their knowledge and experience about the service or software.
Basically what I'm asking is, what would be the best way of making Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policies user friendly, and if it worthy at all.
Answer
I'd say the best two options are:
1) Display terms and conditions as long plain legalese text as usual, in a left hand column, but then summarise it in much shorter, friendlier, simpler text on the right. 500px.com does this really well:
2) Format the text in a legible manner. Separate it into linked sections with proper headings, good typography and images. Facebook has had a lot of criticism for their privacy policy in the past, but their privacy policy today is well formatted, well sectioned and written in an easy-to-read format.
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