New York Times: Credit Card Stats for the Consumer
We’ve come to expect credit card companies to bury the important facts about their cards in the “fine print.” But why should that happen? Shouldn’t we expect, as consumers, that the card companies would work to make things clear for us? At the end of the day, we will be more content with the services they offer us if we know what we’re getting into.
For their Op-Ed piece “Healthy Credit,” The New York Times enlisted the directors of Design for Democracy, a “nonprofit group that promotes accessible and transparent civic communications,” to design a Credit Card Facts box much like the Nutrition Facts Box made standard with the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990. Here are the results:
While a Nutrition Facts box doesn’t tell us everything we should know about a food product, we, similarly wouldn’t expect a Credit Card Facts box to tell us everything. But requiring credit card companies to highlight the most important aspects of a credit card agreement would pair nicely with the recently signed legislation designed to protect consumers against unfair fees and penalties (recently described in the article “What the Credit Card Holder’s Bill of Rights Means to You” over at Mint.com). We at FABB support the NYTimes and Design for Democracy’s “Credit Card Facts” box design, and hope that this design or a similar one will help both the consumers with credit cards and the companies who offer them by clarifying the contractual agreement before costly misunderstandings occur.
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[...] is necessary for promoting stable relationships between financial institutions and their customers. As covered earlier in FABB.log, members of the AIGA Design for Democracy suggested a “Credit Card Facts Box” similar [...]