Disclaimers are harmful to the users experience. They increase the amount of text on the page, which means the user will have to take more time to read the page or they will stop reading and instead scan to get the information they are looking for. The latter is most common and means they might miss important information on the page. User studies also show that most users don’t read disclaimers. If it is critical that users understand content from a disclaimer, that should be written in plain English (not legal language) and should be tested with users to make sure they understand.

We recommend the disclaimer text be placed in an accordion or a modal window. This is especially important for repeat visitors. Assuming that checking the disclaimer box is required before proceeding, the checkbox should either cause the user to move to the next page or it should be adjacent to the continue/next/submit button.

Disclaimer with accordian

Disclaimer with Modal window