Welcome

Another blog let me know that Times Select is now free for students and faculty with a .edu e-mail address. This service is normally about $50 per year.

Times select is essentially access to columnists, NYTimes online archives, customized e-mail alerts among other things. See here for a full list.

The trouble starts after you have submitted and verified your university address.

The verification link takes you to this page. Can you figure out quickly how to create an account?

I have a NYT account but it doesn't use my .edu address. At first I thought about logging in using that account but that wouldn't make sense. The box on the left says "Upgrade to Times Select". I don't think I want to do that since I already have free Times Select I think. The button on the left says upgrade and not register so I am not sure what to do. I check my verification e-mail for a password but I don't see one. I spend a little more time staring at it and then decide to just click the login button on the right. Hoping for a good error message.

This time I get some helpful red text that tells me to register by clicking on the button on the left. I then see in small gray type "Not a NYTimes.com member yet?". Now I understand what to do and was able to register for the service.

I created a registration system based off of the NYTimes.com design a few years ago so I know it wasn't this confusing previously.

The key things wrong here are: labeling the button upgrade instead of register, making upgrade to Times Select the largest things on the left and overshadowing the only hint that you should use this link to register.

How this could be fixed: go back to having people register and then make your Times Select pitch on the registration page, another option is to make it smaller than the "Not a NYTimes.com member yet?" text.

I wonder if anyone else has run into this issue.

Trees are starting to get new leaves. Flowers are sprouting up from the ground. The days are not as cold as they were. It is starting to look like spring around here. We are going to get a small cold snap over the next few days but hopefully the cold is coming to an end.

I have lots from spring break but I need to collect the photos and write up post about it. Hopefully tomorrow.