Login/registration page design?

Muse

Muse

Member
So, recently (for a personal project I've been doing for fun) I went around looking at a lot of registration/signup and login forms, trying to figure out what's most user-friendly and what's intimidating/confusing.

Today I found the Huffduffer signup page and I love the concept, but at the same time I usually like to go vertically through signup pages filling out info, so I'm not sure if 'creative' concepts work well for these types of things.

So I thought I'd ask all you of Design Forums: what do you think constitutes good design for login and registration pages, and what do you usually think works best?
 
Well Ive never seen anything like that before! I love that idea...however can see that for some people, putting their details into something that isn't the norm could prove to make them cautious or at worst - not do it at all.

Maybe with an unusual concept like this a "visit our regular sign up form" is needed.

One thing I immediately wondered was what fields were *required. Not everyone has a website and what happens when you leave that field blank?

Ive worked on some forms before after looking around and came across a concept using javascript (if I remember correctly) where a quirky quote relating to the website and field name that your cursor was in would pop up to the right of the field.

I think it was for a film review website and was something like this....

ie. First Name:____ Second Name:_____ "My names ****, ********, ****...."

Where the "*'s" were automatically filled with whatever was typed into the name field
 
Another designer where I work did a similar thing recently for a webform, she does a bit of design for print amongst other things in the office and I'm not sure if it was done conciously or not. I had to build the web form based on it but we didn't end up creating the fields in that way as I don't think the less computer savvy would get it.

I think its pretty dam cool though, just depends if your target audience are going to understand.
 
Well it depends on several things, that is cool but as others have said if it is for general use you need a dumbass safe version, which that is not.

But for general use don't request too much info, why do you need thier address or phone number for example, a simple create a user name and password and then allow them to edit those details once they are logged in is far better and a lot more user freindly. That way it is not intimidating and easy to fill in which is the aim here. TBH. :)
 
Jazajay said:
But for general use don't request too much info, why do you need thier address or phone number for example, a simple create a user name and password and then allow them to edit those details once they are logged in is far better and a lot more user freindly. That way it is not intimidating and easy to fill in which is the aim here. TBH. :)
Click to expand...

I agree. I read an article the other day about reducing barriers of entry for new users, and basically making registration as quick and painless as possible—I've clicked off many sites that have 13+ fields to fill out...it's better to just grab essentials (username/password/email/confirmations) than force the user to give their location, address, job title, company...

On the other extreme I once found a game website that had a three-page registration process, and each page had two forms. It was ridiculous to go through three pages when all the information could fit into one.
 
Yeah exactly the thing about that game site is I bet most of that info could have been added once they had created thier account. The thing here is people will go through long forms if they know the reward they get afterwards is worth it. The problem is they have no idea if it is or isn't until once they go through the form.

For example how fed up do you get when filling in your car quote form on confused.com, but you go through the rediculiosly long form because you know that you get a reward that is worth the time and annoyance, the best quote from all their providers.
Whats the alternative? phoning them all up 1 by 1, that would take them longer, so therfore the annoyance is worth it.

A simple username and password then once they have logged in and explorered the site a bit, they can then see if inputting things like address is worth it.
It is also easier to have loads of fields but make them all optional, but make it clear that they need to be filled in at some point if the user wants to do a certain action that way if the kids are bothering them for the computer, they are on a lunch break, what ever they can create the account frist and fill the details in when they have time.

For example lets say they are signing up to create a merchant account at your shop.
You can have all the address fields as optional fields and allow them to enter them once they are logged in, but make it clear with a line underneath that section that the address must be entered for them to purchase from you, this can be done later once you have created an account.

That way they can log in chek out what you have, or just create an account as they are busy, then when they are at the right time to buy from you add the address and save them for later use.
 
I think you almost have to have boxes for entry fields. This is going to confuse someone. I like to think of designing for a third grader most of time. It has to be very easy to figure out and use.
 
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