

Sign Up Forms Must Die - jyu
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/signupforms

======
staunch
How would you make this site have a gentler slope? Let the user post a comment
and then say "Thanks for the comment, now you just need an account to publish
this. Enter your username/password."?

Some of the sites that do "gradual engagement" piss me off when they let me
believe I'm about to do something and then surprise me with a sign up form. It
strikes me as tricky and I very frequently walk away.

I certainly believe it's smart to let users do as much as possible without
requiring them to sign up. I think the idea of signing up is pretty ingrained
in people though. If you make it dead simple (like this site or reddit) it's
not much of a barrier and it keeps things straightforward.

~~~
bayareaguy
<http://jottit.com> has a nearly frictionless scheme.

~~~
huhtenberg
I am looking at their front page and I have no idea what they expect me to
type in a very large unlabeled text entry field.

And if I click on Create, it say "see, that was easy". It certainly was, but
what was IT exactly ? :)

~~~
aykall
I have to agree with huhtenberg, I never heard about Jottit and I went there
to check it out but a big blank field with a "create a site" button tells me
nothing. Honestly, that is a lot missing in there...

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boredguy8
"Upon arriving at [Google Video], they found a link to share their video and
what happened next? They got the form in Figure 13.1."

"It’s only when you want to publish or share your movie that Jumpcut asks for
your name and email so you and others can access the movie you just made."

I -hate- the web experience this article describes. If you're going to make me
sign up to use your service, tell me. Don't string me along and waste my time.

The point the author seems to be making: let people know what they're getting
before you make them sign up. Well, I think Google Video does a pretty good
job at that. And I can -view- any video I want to without signing up. Is that
"gradual engagement"? If so, why is it being criticized? If not, how is it
different?

In fact, the more I think about this, the more the practice counters the
principle. The principle seems to be (and ought to be), "Let your potential
customers know what they're getting right away." Google Video does that. And
if I ever want to go 'deeper' (from watching videos to posting them, or
collecting them), I know right away that I need to sign up.

On the other hand, to _view_ the video I've spent the last however long
_making_ on JumpCut, I get SURPRISED by a registration form. Plus, why would I
need to register to -see- a video. I can understand needing to register to
post or save a video, but to see it? I'd argue, then, that Google Video
actually does a -better- job delaying the registration component than any of
these examples.

And they're up-front about it from the start.

~~~
cstejerean
Google Video is not a good counter example to Jumpcut. I think Google Video
works perfectly. The point of Google Video is to view videos, which it allows
you to do without an account. To share a video you need to have an account,
same as in Jumpcut. (Typically you have to make users create an account to
post content otherwise a never ending stream of spam is likely to follow,
degrading the quality of the service for legitimate users)

For Jumpcut, the real value in letting the user upload and edit a video is to
get a feel for the video editing functionality without having to sign up,
(since the video editing is really their selling point). If the user likes
what they've created they can sign up to post it. This is key. Let the user
try out the idea of your site without signing up. You can then require them to
signup if they like it and want to keep their work.

Recently there was another post where somebody had a startup that had some
cool way to learn a foreign language
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=144998>

I wanted to check it out but had to sign up to really see how it all worked.
So I left.

------
jakewolf
The irony is you have to sign up to leave a comment on that article.

~~~
Goronmon
Except commenting isn't the primary purpose of the article. It would be ironic
if you had to fill out a sign up form just to read it.

But I'm sure you were just poking fun, so poke away, haha.

------
jgill
If you really want to get rid of sign up forms, having a large scale trusted
and secure central repository for unique IDs/logins and 'commonly requested'
information would eliminate the need for many sign up forms. The majority of
web based applications, services, etc. ask you for the same information
repeatedly without any actual need or use for the information as a value add
in the functionality of the application. Why is that? Why hasn't this been
done/worked in the past?

~~~
aykall
Sounds like you are describing OpenID. Once i thought about a little software
that would work like a real world id. Every time a web service ask you for
personal info you would just click on a icon and show them your id (that means
that the software would pass all the details to the service). Would that work?
It sounds a lot like google checkout...

~~~
jgill
Yes, something similar to OpenID and Googlecheckout. The problem would be that
the Yahoo!'s, Microsoft's, and AOL's of the world would not allow Google to
centrally manage all user IDs and registration information on the web (or they
would not be willing participants in the centralization of the information to
another for profit company).

------
mwmanning
My current project involves interacting with a chat bot. We could require
users to sign up on a form and make sure we have a boatload of data from them
upfront before opening up the service to them.

Instead what we do is tell them to add a bot to their buddy list and send it a
greeting. In doing this, they've already engaged in the service, and we have
created an entry in our users database based on their buddy name and chat
network. They can then decide whether supply additional information.

There are lots of ways to lower the barrier to entry if you're willing to
change the way you think about online services.

~~~
chengmi
The issue isn't necessarily collecting "boatloads of data"; rather, the
problem is making sure I have a way to contact this person who is potentially
interested in my product. For you, this is conveniently solved through their
screen name and network. However, how would you go about contacting someone
who stumbles upon your website (without explicitly asking them for contact
info)?

Another issue is accountability. If someone is abusing my service, I want to
be able to ban them from ruining things for everyone else. If you look at sign
up forms in terms of security, the psychological acceptability of filling out
a form and providing an e-mail address is actually quite high compared to more
robust ways of verifying identity (driver's license, social security number,
etc).

------
justindz
If the gradual engagement includes a reasonably complex operation, like
writing an article and then creating an account to post it, does this obviate
the need for a CAPTCHA?

I'm curious, because I hate CAPTCHAs, but only slightly less than I hate being
used as a splog.

I think it might, so I'm feeling happy.

~~~
boredguy8
Why would that remove the need for a CAPTCHA? Normal procedure: Register ->
write spam. This method: write spam -> register.

~~~
justindz
Hrm. Fair enough. I was assuming the "write" step would include something
atypical enough to screw up a program that just looks for "blogs" to "comment
on." But, that might not be the case for everyone (or even for me).

------
mojuba
How does gradual engagement work precisely? If this is based entirely on
cookies, which seems to be the only possibility, then: what if I started the
process, posted something - my video, a blog post, etc - then got my cookies
deleted? Or moved to another computer?

~~~
notauser
It would depend on your product. I think the key UI principle to remember is
that if user work is not saved, make it obvious that this is the case. They
way they can decide when they want to keep their data enough to save it.

If the data is impersonal enough you can add a "Whoops, lost you work? Click
here to see recent orphans" link.

------
serhei
Use OpenID, perhaps? Add a ClickPass widget?

~~~
marrone
OpenID currently only speeds up the registration process, not replace it

~~~
apgwoz
But, how much "extra" information is really required for these services? Do
they really need me to fill out my address or some other thing? Can't they
just link my openid to a username of my choosing?

If that's the case, it speeds up the registration process by a lot, and
_nearly_ replaces it. (not quite since I'd need a username)

~~~
jgill
Open ID would be a good solution if it was adopted on a wider scale and was
more on it's way to becoming a trusted standard.

I think many sites require extranenous registration information just because
other sites request the same information. It also gives them the option of
analysis at a later date.

Some companies may actually use the information they collect for data mining
or to resell. Even though this can sometimes have evil purposes, sometimes it
can be beneficial for a company to say Paul Graham really likes chocolate chip
cookie dough ice cream and its his birthday, but for most places collecting
this information is of little use. It's just annoying for the user, as the
many replies to this news posting can attest to.

