Maryrose Lyons blogging since 2003...

Top 5 Tips For Sign-Up Forms

May 18, 2009 at 10:04 am

Ryan Singer at FOWD in London a few weeks ago. If you haven’t got 10 mins to watch it, here’s what he says:

Put the easy stuff first. Things people don’t have to think about. That way they’re more invested and have a bit of momentum going when it comes to things they have to think about – like choosing a user name.
Add Ajax goodness for think about fields, eg. choosing user names. Show people on the spot if that name is taken. It’s much more satisfying than completing the form and having to go back and change.
Only ask for what you need. If you need to ask more, you can always ask it inside the app.
Use conversational language – and that includes on error messages. Instead of a bossy command style “you have not completed all the fields”, use “Can you check this? You’ve missed something.”
Design your form to take numbers in whatever way the user wants to give you - if they want to put brackets around their number prefix – let them!

Plus one more!

Show them what they’re getting at the end. Similar to how ecommerce sites allows you to review your purchase, similarly you need to show them what they’ve just signed up for.