

The Case for Using Mad Lib Sign Up Forms - shanellem
http://www.evergage.com/insights/case-using-mad-lib-sign-forms-hint-mad-conversion-increases

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davedx
I read this and was interested enough to do a bit more research into the
topic, and found this writeup here: <http://formulate.com.au/research/mad-
libs-madness/>

Unsurprisingly, context is everything, and for some things standard forms are
clearer and win in UX. Some sites saw conversions decrease from using mad lib
forms, some saw them increase.

A/B test it if you do this.

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fizzfur
Can't read the article as the big popup is in the way and the X is microscopic
on my phone.

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web007
At least you can see the X - for some reason I only see the middle-third of
the overlay, and can't close it. If I were interested in signing up for their
list, I couldn't do that either.

Definitely a UX fail.

~~~
RobMCarpenter
Thanks for the comments everyone... By the way, sorry for the popup issues! We
have actually been testing different timing/copy for popups for a blog post
titled, "How to Create Popups That Don't Suck". In fact, could we use a
screenshot of your responses within the post.. in response to the what not to
do section?

On site messaging is a big part of what we provide, so we are always trying to
learn, improve, and share those learnings on our blog.

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kens
This seems potentially psychologically manipulative to me since the form is
putting words in the user's mouth. E.g. the example in the article: "My name
is -blank- and I'm looking for the cheapest auto insurance." Maybe price is
not the user's only concern, but this sign up form says it is. It would be
interesting to see if these forms can actually change the user's views. (Sort
of like NLP tries to do.) I.e. does the user's prioritization of price vs
customer service vs coverage quality get changed by this style of signup vs a
regular sign up.

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ChikkaChiChi
I didn't see this article the first time it was on HN, so thank you for
posting the follow-up.

This is an interesting concept. We'll have to try using it for some of our
forms.

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tbrownaw
Depending on what you're asking for, this can also be more clear than the
traditional boring way (especially if there's no inline help text, say for
spreadsheet column headers). It's not just for signing up new users for
things.

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EGreg
I love it ... but I would also say that, in general, mad libs are good for
creating shareable content :) People feel ownership of something after they've
customized it, and crowdsourcing the answers make it easier for them to just
pick some of the ones already there, for each field. A few people would add
new ones and you would have to manually review them and add them to the pool
for everyone else to choose from.

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Evbn
That's not what a mad lib is.

That is how every real estate / rental,contract works in the real world.

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ssharp
Was going to say the same thing. I hate to be pedantic, but a better term is
"fill in the blank". Traditional forms would actually be closer to a MadLibs
interface than this.

Still, I knew exactly what the form was from calling it a MadLibs form, so it
didn't confuse me.

