Ask HN: What is the optimal sign-up process? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is the optimal sign-up process?

Big internal debate. Obviously trying to keep as many visitors as possible. In this case, we're not so focused on retention; more focused on participation (could be one & done)

Some examples that are being tossed around include Layers.com (strictly email), Quora (email + password)...most others ask for 4-5 input options.

1) Strictly asking for email address up front --> sends random password --> forces you to copy & paste --> then change to your own later

2) Asking for Email & Password --Is it an absolute necessity to include 'confirm password?' If you mistyped, you could just use 'forgot password' link to recover.

3) Asking for email, password x2 and name / username? --I think 'name' & 'username' are optimal for B2C startups, while 'name' is plenty for B2B products -- fair enough?

Also, any opinion on when sign up process is most appropriate on it's own separate page?

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Personally, I prefer the way Twitter and Dropbox ask me to enter my email and password (once). The submission of a user name and real name are needed for application specific setup.

I suspect that most users will use standard passwords and don't change or make these passwords more secure only because you ask for them twice.

In general, I would say that each additional input box will scare away more users.

It's hard to give a "right answer" because "it depends."

But in general, IMO, it's best to keep things as simple as possible to get a user from point A-to-B. ie. ask yourself why you want the user to sign up, and what do you want them to do after?

With this in mind, I prefer email+pw (and maybe a few other fields depending on your needs). No pw repeat. No email confirmation.

Just my 2 cents.

And to add to the mix.. curious what others think once Facebook / Twitter / etc SSO are added to the mix?

1) ask email - enough for sign up, sign-in automatically

2) show password - immediately after sign-up, also email password.

3) option to change password - at the show-password page

4) Ask for email only. Activation link in email, when followed, asks to set a password.

Every case is different.

Rule of thumb is that additional fields will reduce your conversion rate and if retention is an ancillary goal then you should keep it as short as possible.

However data has shown that adding an additional checkbox can INCREASE user participation:

http://conversionvoodoo.com/blog/2010/07/11-conversion-rate-...

So more important than a general question or attempting to guess, is developing a testing process that allows you to A/B test for appropriate metrics.

i'd love to know if there's research that's been done on how each additional field reduces conversion?

thanks for passing along the related link. don't doubt checkbox can be useful in certain situations.

A/B testing could surely help, but this is one of those you want to get right off the bat because it's tough to recover the information that you don't collect upon signup (integrating a linkedin % complete is the best example i've seen of enticing users to add more)

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