

Ask HN: Do AJAX enabled User Registration pages increase conversions? - jazzychad

I am in the middle of creating a new site/business which will ask all users to register an account as well as submit their credit card for payment of the service.<p>Right now I am working on my user registration page. For me this is the most overwhelming part because there are so many things you have to validate as well as getting the credit card info processed correctly.<p>Currently all the validation/processing is done on the back-end once the user clicks "Submit". If there is a validation or processing error, the registration form is displayed again. After polling a few friends on the matter, I was told that I should <i>not</i> repopulate the password or credit card info (number, cvv, billing zip) on the page because this would probably breach a lot of security stuff and possible PCI regulations. I agree they shouldn't be repopulated.<p>But, this presents a rough user experience, because if they goof one thing (email confirmation, for example) they end up having to fill in a lot of the form over again.<p>I also heard suggestions to use AJAX to do some validation work on the front-end before really sending the info to the back-end for final processing. To me, this adds another level of complexity and another point of failure to the system; however this seems to be a much nicer user experience because validation errors are found quicker/easier and they can be corrected before final submission.<p>So, my question is (finally): For those that have gone through this process, what is your recommendation? Does adding AJAX validation substantially raise registration/conversion rates?
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p01nd3xt3r
The question should not be "How do I increase conversions". The question
should be "How do I provide the best user experience possible".

Keeping that it mind I find its best to not make a user submit a form to
determine that there are errors.

[http://www.position-absolute.com/articles/jquery-form-
valida...](http://www.position-absolute.com/articles/jquery-form-validator-
because-form-validation-is-a-mess/)

The link above is an awesome JQuery Inline Validation Script.

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jazzychad
I guess I was asking it indirectly. I know that better user-experiences lead
to more conversions. So maybe I just answered my own question. Thanks for the
link!

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mahmud
Instant signup bloated my user database. Note to self: remember to create user
records in the database _after_ the email is verified; mean while save user
records temporarily by their session key.

I have a chunk of 100 or so users whom I am not sure will ever come back. I
have a MOTD message waiting for them the next time they login, if ever, asking
them for an email address. In the mean time I have to skip that chunk of user
IDs in my reports and analysis.

