

The one checkbox every signup process needs. - squiggy22
http://blog.webdistortion.com/2010/09/30/the-one-checkbox-every-signup-process-needs/

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mustpax
No, not every registration page needs a checkbox asking if the user is a
journalist. The vast majority of your users are not journalists, so do not
burden them with another checkbox that they'll most likely ignore. If the
issue is opting out of marketing emails, provide an opt-out checkbox. It's
that simple.

~~~
squiggy22
The issue isn't opting out of marketing emails, its the opportunity lost from
not identifying journalists correctly. There are often multi-selects /
checkboxes asking if you are a 'Student/Decision Maker/Developer'
(particularly for enterprise software) so adding an additional one in many
cases wouldn't be superfluous.

~~~
mustpax
Thanks for the clarification. This does make more sense for enterprise
software trial signups where you have to go through similar annoying
questions, but it's still a pretty bad signup experience.

If you have direct sales organization that really needs this info, it might be
a good tradeoff in usability vs. revenue to make, but it's still a tradeoff.

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hkuo
Er, ok, so to help the .1% of signups coming from journalist or bloggers, we
add a checkbox that's out of place and irrelevant to the 99.9% of actual
potential users which could have the negative effect of losing signups from
having some weird checkbox asking if they're a blogger or journalist?

Try to imagine if vimeo or YouTube, tumblr, Facebook, or absolutely any site
that implemented this in their signup form. It just plain sounds dumb. User
signups are supposed to be as frictionless as possible.

What a selfish idea that only serves the author and the small percentage of
similar people at the expense of the interests of the businesses they intend
to write for.

Or is the author just being facetious?

~~~
squiggy22
At the end of the day, what I'm talking about is segmenting your marketing
database, into users, and potential link builders with 1 extra field that
99.9% of people don't need to pay any attention to (your words). As I've
already stated, enterprise software, and loads of others already ask for a
number of qualifying fields for leads, and this would be a simple extension
for many.

I have in the past, received emails along the lines of 'As someone who has
written about us before - we'd like to introduce our new product'. Which have
been gratefully received.

It's common sense to build relationships with the people who can help launch
other products, or help you announce features. If encouraging businesses to
market more efficiently to bloggers is selfish. Well. I'm guilty.

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judev
Asking for a website URL in a users profile setup can give you the same
information and more. Not a one-size-fits-all option obviously, but a useful
one nonetheless.

