Execution is the key: #1 the registration form

I am testing hundreds of websites and using the internet tens of hours a week. So inevitably there are things i learn, things i like, things i don’t. I have decided to share with you things that i believe are common mistakes in execution and i really see often. And since the sentence i hear most often is “Execution is the key to success” i believe this could make it even more relevant

It will be published in a series of posts. Today #1: the registration form and login process

It is very rare to find a web site with a well thought registration process which is a KEY step in the experience of a website. A good registration process should be fast for the user but informative enough for the company. Coupled with registration is the login process which should be dead simple and fast (meaning saving all click that are not necessary)

• login /refresh: the most common mistake i see is that website do not give access to login within the homepage but requires you to click on a login link to lead you to a new page where to include your credentials. Ideally you want login/pass to appear from home with a “remember me” feature or in worst case using ajax a log/pass that appears in one click (see Digg.com for example or Skype which is PERFECT). YouTube is doing half well (login link at the top + directly log from home)

• Birth Date: a common mistake i really see VERY often is the birth date field and gender. Website creator forget to ask the user the possibility to choose and instead put a default choosen field (eg: date 1/1/1990 and gender: male) one example here. This will affect your whole database later as many users will not take the time to rectify the default data and input their own. Instead put a “ – – – – “ mention that will oblige users to choose
• Country/address: same mistake with country where USA appears by default (this is very very american) and website creators do not think of their international users. Some website smartly use the IP adress to see where you are coming from and save you this steps (but there can be some margin of error here depending on the ISP). Curiously Linkedin makes that mistake. MySpace too. Bebo is doing well

Another mistake i see (again very american) is the field “State/County” which is totally irrelevant for most countries and that most people do not know how to handle. Take off this field depending on the country

• Captcha: the captcha is this series of letters/numbers you are asked to write down to check the registration is not managed by a robot and save spam account. If you don t have one you should. If you do you should make sure it is readable. Many time if find captchas that hard to read and once you press enter and realize you did not write down the good series of characters, you have to start the process all over again. Why not add a “see another series” like FaceBook is doing. Operator11 eleven is doing it PERFECT

There are tones of other mistakes i see often like (short list)

• asking too much information (meaning information you will not need or the user will not understand why you need them for)
• not asking enough: after the registration process it will become very hard to ask for more information to your users. think well what you need to know. Many new startups do not ask age or gender even if they plan to do advertising. I believe this is a mistake (metacafe for example do not ask that).
• long perceived layout: again speed is key. even if you ask a lot of info give the feel to your users this will go fast (blocks of colours /steps / progressive registration / speed of process/…). Mybloglog for example is not asking a lot for registration but engage you in their website to declare more and this is perceived ok as users understand the necessity to give more data to share with their community
• Validate email structure BEFORE registration process is over if possible while being written down (ajax allows you that now)
• Confirm registration by email with active validation to save fake accounts/non valid accounts
• Hard to find sign up page (MySpace is not an easy one, Operator 11 is perfect)

The beauty of the web is that you can test whatever you want to optimize your registration process provided you are aware of the necessity and have build the necessary tools to track conversions and registration sessions abandonned in the middle. So you can try different registration form until you get the right one. Watch also closely the structure of the data you are collecting. If only man born 1/1/1990 are registering, then you have a problem

One tip: offer OpenID option to your users to minimize also the risk of mistakes and typo

Tags: registration+form, process, ID, identification

Comments

[Frank Smadja]

Great tips Ouriel -

Please continue the series, I am anxious to read more of these.

[Alex]

Thanks for the tips, Ouriel!

A small question - 'Confirm registration' is listed among common mistakes - do you mean that email validation/confirmation should or shouldn't be done? :)

Looking forward to the rest of the series.

[ouriel]

Alex, Should of course....this is the only way you can really validate your account and get a clean base.

[Kevin]

Great tips, we are just about to introduce the registration process on our site and are still in development, hopefully we will now get it right, we are going to be offering test purchasing and age, gender and location are so important.

Thanks

[Jules Morgan]

This is an excllent article. Thank you for taking the time to write it and back up your points with examples.