How Not To Design a Sign-Up Form

I’ve been playing around with personal productivity services, mostly because it beats being personally productive, but also because I tend to be pretty scatter-headed and still keeps notes listed on random scraps of paper in pants pocket.

I stumbled upon Remember The Milk today, looked interesting and light-weight enough so I decided to give it a whirl. The sign-up for was simple and clear enough (except for the odd date thing, but whatever).

I typed in my first name, hit TAB, typed in my last name, hit TAB, and got this:

My password was invalid before I’d typed anything into it. So already the interface is screaming at me. You gotta give a guy at least a chance to put something in there. I started typing in a password and upon one character stroke I got this:

It’s now screaming at me as I try, to the best of my abilities, to type in the password. Yes, it went away at five characters. I do enjoy the error notification at the field level, rather than at the page level, but you gotta give a user the benefit of the doubt; let them TAB or click AWAY from the field before pointing out the error.

This is the page where I’ve already decided to try your service out, be somewhat nice to me as it is my first interaction with you as a customer. Be gentle, hold my hand, make it simple; and for chrissakes give me a chance to get it right before you start telling me I’m doing it wrong.

Oh, just for fun: It IS possible to error the whole form out, but that’s just kicking sand on the fire.

Written by Mike Monteiro on February 15, 2007 |