But that makes even less sense, because the link text “sign in” is extremely descriptive: it’s an explicit request to “sign in,” not “create an account.” If I indeed have a LinkedIn account, I have to click “Sign in” a second time on the “Already on LinkedIn?” section at the bottom of this window. This is highly unexpected behavior because it does not follow that “see more comments” would make me create an account.” What’s worse, not only does clicking “see more comments” send me to this “create account” screen, clicking “sign in” also sends me here. Agree and join? What? This is neither the “view more comments” option or the “sign in” screen I would have expected from the previous links. Screen 2: LinkedIn sign up page for creating a new account. Here’s where it gets awkward: since I wanted to see more comments, I clicked the link that is literally titled “see more comments.” Was I able to see more comments? No! I was taken to the following screen, which says absolutely nothing about comments at all, but asks provides me with a way to “join” LinkedIn. However, in this case, I wanted to view some of the comments people made on the post. Both the “see more comments” and “sign in” links actually send you to a “create account” window.

Screen 1: initial page with most of the expected information. In this case, I clicked on a link I had saved in the past, to a post a friend made announcing that his building has space for rent. However, even though LinkedIn’s “paywall” is actually free, I think they’re handling it very poorly due to the website behaving in an unexpected way. This is always going to be frustrating on the part of the user. In many cases where content is hidden behind a paywall, there’s a jarring break in continuity, where at some point in the process, the website forces you to pay, join, or sign in. However, what happens afterward is very frustrating. The very first window you see after clicking the link is just fine. This could be from someone emailing you a link via LinkedIn’s “share” function, or, as in my case, I had saved a link to a post and clicked the link a few weeks later. Here’s an example of a frustrating experience when clicking on a link to a post or update on LinkedIn.

Linkedin log in