Display terms and conditions in popup, new window or same window?

[chuckylefrek]

I am wondering what is the best way to display the terms and conditions on my site for my registration form. The form includes a link to the terms and conditions next to a check box that they must check to agree with them.

I see my options as follows:

1. Display terms in same window - not ideal if user has just filled in the form

2. Display them in javascript popup. Apart from the need to have Javascript (which my site uses extensively anyway) perhaps there are popup blocker issues?

3. Display the terms in a new window

Currently I am displaying them in a new window but am thinking some users may get disorientated by this especially as the terms and conditions page has all the site navigation on it.

Any advice much appreciated.

Thanks

Paul

[AlexDawson]

Could you not show the terms and conditions in a text box in the same window?

The problem with your question is that the same window (as you stated) would wipe the information and using a popup with the blocker preventing it causes another issue, most popup blockers will refresh the page if you give permission to allow popup's within that website (or page), this means your information would again be wiped unless they know the keyboard combination to bypass the blocker)... I wish browsers didn't need the refresh! Either way other than having it in the same window, you would be left with a new window which makes sense as when they close the terms and conditions, they will return to the signup form.

[jimmy85]

I'd say new window/tab and it doesn't matter if it has all the site navigation, I think. If they really want to read the T&C, theyr'e gonna open it anyway.

But I agree with Alex, a small text box at the bottom. You could have some effects on it, like when user clicks on the box it expands its height so it can be more readable, instead of scrolling down all the time. I think several sites do this already.

[AlexDawson]

Actually, an interesting idea would be a scrollable lightbox effect with the terms appearing onclick so they can read without the page distracting them and hit the close button when they are done, this would avoid navigating elsewhere and would have a sort of dialog box effect going for it.

[chuckylefrek]

Thanks for the suggestions. I like the idea of the lightbox effect. I use javascript anyway for the site so a bit more won't do any harm. I didn't realise you could do lightbox effects on pages - I have only seen images.

Any examples of this anyone has to hand?

Thanks

Paul

[CustomHosting]

I use joomla for a lot of sites and use lightbox very often, I use the free yootheme toolset built on mootools to display, videos, content, text, login boxes, etc in lightbox windows

[chuckylefrek]

Thanks Custom Hosting. I am not using Joomla for this site -it is a bespoke development however I do use jquery lightbox to display images. Perhaps I can use this to display the terms. I will look into it.

Thanks

Paul