A new approach to the sign up form | Hacker News Reader

A new approach to the sign up form

huffduffer.com

81 pointsmadmotive46 comments

Usability and web standards are practiced for good reasons. This form ignores all of them.

It might not be conventional but if you stuck this form in front of someone that had never used a web based form before I think they'd find it quite usable.

As for ignoring web standards have you looked at the markup? It's compliant HTML5: http://adactio.com/journal/1524/

It might not be conventional but if you stuck this form in front of someone that had never used a web based form before I think they'd find it quite usable.

I like the whimsicality of this form, but...

Do you think there's a chance that anyone, ever, will see this form before having successfully registered at more traditional forms dozens (if not hundreds) of times?

'Usable to someone who's never used another website' is not the most practical standard of usability. "Users spend most of their time on other sites," after all.

Huffduff may still for reasons of personality prefer this form, but I don't think it can be said to win on usability considerations.

Oddly, most regular "web based forms" look just like paper based forms. You don't fill your taxes out on a form that looks like:

Hi, my name is _____ and I'm a _______ who made $___,_____ last year. I already paid $___,____ through my employer and I have ___ children and will be taking _____, ______, _____, _____, and _____ as deductions. I had capital gains of $__,____. Also, I would like to donate ___ dollars to farmers and ____ dollars to political campaigns, and I am aware that any donations do not affect my tax obligations at all. This was filled out on the ___ day of the ___ month in the year of our _____, 20__.

I don't think it ignores usability at all; it seems very focused on it.

Breaking expected flows makes things harder to understand. I needed to think to use that form.

Some changes over time can improve clarity, but the initial friction is costly.

That fact that you had to think makes it memorable. If a website does the same thing like everyone else, then it will be forgotten like everyone else.

Forgetting the signup form is just fine. Remembering the content or the activity on a site is more important.

Not true. I've forgotten what the site was already, and it's been less than 15 seconds since I last saw it.

I think its a great idea for complex forms gathering in-depth data.

Also you have to read 2 or 3 times as many words just to figure out what goes where. And I can't see what is broken about the way most places organize signup forms now.

I think that, for the sake of memorability, I'd pick an approach like Vimeo's to something like this.

http://vimeo.com/log_in

Although I like the way the original site is straightforward (usability for those new to the web), vimeo does a killer job at integrating their login form into the site design...it actually looks like it's supposed to be there, as opposed to most log-in forms that just look slapped on.

I really don't want to rain on anybodies parade, and I'd really like to like the design just because it's different and original. But unfortunately, I don't think it's a step up in terms of usability.

Ignoring stuff that others have already pointed out, there's no way to know which fields are required before you submit. Not a big thing in the grand scheme. But it's kind of a no-brainer, always recommended usability thing.

It's very successful on the "get social media sites to link to us" standard.

Definitely a novelty. It cool because it is different, but it is also less usable because it is different.

It is an interesting strategy to somehow make the registration page news worthy. Unfortunately, assuming visitors sign up, they don't know what they are signing up for.

The content or features need to be the main draw to your site.

this is so hard to use, so hard, so hard... type in username. So hard to use: ignores "usability standards"... type in password. How can anyone use this?! Completely unconventional... type in email.

I hate to see a novel approach like this poo-pooed because it's not a rubber stamp copy of big-web design principles, and without justification, no less.

The fonts changes are a little funky, and that's about the only criticism I have. It's easy to follow and usable. I really like it.

I agree. This is total FAIL.

The natural language approach to the form is fantastic, I just wish he took other usability considerations into account like font color and line width

while i appreciate this from an aesthetic perspective, this fails multiple usability tests:

1) "across the room" -- stand 10 feet away from your machine and see if you can tell what you're supposed to do

2) "don't make me think" -- i'm sure anyone who has ever used a website has to think about this one.

if you actually want people to sign up, make it easier, not harder. save your creativity for your content.

I've never heard of the "across the room" usability test before. I'm intrigued: can you point to sources?

My only source is my business partner, but it's a pretty good test. At 10-15 feet, you can only see features as geometric shapes, but on very well-designed sites you can probably tell what you're "supposed" to do. This is most effective for signup and purchase flows, where simplicity matters most, but I think it can lead to insights on pretty much anything.

It's steampunk web usability design!

I like the idea. It seems to take up a lot of space though to get a lot of simple information.I think a little color contrast for the form fields will help. I would be interested to see how this for would compare to other forms. You should test it with Google optimizer to see which people are more likely to convert. Always test, the data won't lie. You got to go with what gets you more users.

I do believe that design patterns in design and usability are really helpful and are penned after a lot of consideration, usage, observation and tuning.

When the ipod launched with the click wheel feature all the usability experts were busy looking for the good and bad.

If you stuck to rules it is hard to come up with new stuff. I appreciate the thought of bring old-school wisdom here, who knows this can possibly lead to some better sign-up forms.

On the iPod incident Steve Jobs responded by redefining Design with a very simple meaning - "Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like,...That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."

I am very uncomfortable typing in a passwsord without any security on the page. Why not secure the sign up page? So many sites makes this same mistake of not taking people's password security seriously. I like the approach of the form though.

Unless the whole page uses HTTPS, securing just the login might still leave you vulnerable to session hijacking and just gives you a false sense of security.

Don't use your gmail (ebay, paypal,...) password for test-driving a site you saw on HN.

Don't use your gmail (ebay, paypal, ...) password for ANYTHING else.

HTTPS only matters for the page you are submitting the log-in information to, not the page you enter it on. Of course, it's difficult to tell if the page you are submitting it to is secure or not without looking at the code.

If nothing else this does provide a nice alternative for form design. The sign-up form might not be the best use-case, however.

Nice idea but as everybody says, it breaks away from commonly expected usability standards.

But when compared to the linear form design. The linear form design seems much more suable since I can quickly recognise what I'm supposed to type in.

"Email address:" is quicker than "My email address is". The same applies to all the fields.

Aesthetically pleasing, functionally terrible.

A lot of the comments here assume you can see truth at a glance, but intuition is fallible. I'd be rather curious to know if Huffduffer did A/B testing of this form vs. a more traditional signup page. Doing that test, and gathering real data, is the surest way to know if this alternate design is any good.

I hate this form. I know a lot of people like it, but I hate it. It goes against all the standard for design techniques that users are used to - even as a designer and full time employee at an internet company I was confused for a half second when looking at it. That is bad.

Oh for goodness sake. This is a spare-time side project website. It's not been A/B tested. It's not been paid for. It's playful, it's different and it's fun. You know, like spare-time side projects are meant to be.

And I hate to be 'that guy', but some of these attempts at usability and UX analysis are straw man conjecture, the hallmark of the amateur. If anyone can show me some user testing or expert opinions based in grounded UX theory I'll be more interested.

Sheesh.

Well, I am not sure straw man is the correct term, but I am not meaning to personally attack the designer. I was merely refuting the point that some are making that this is a brilliant design.

And I am not sure claiming the UX analysis and usability questions are hallmarks of amateurs is a very compelling argument from you. It seems to me they should be the questions everyone is asking about this form.

And there are clear design patterns in form design, even if they aren't the most effective, they exist and users are used to them.

This form reminds me of http://www.wolfslittlestore.be/fear-of-looking-like-a-copyca...

This signup form is playful, but awkward to use as a result. Conventions exist for a reason.

I like the idea, but some simple CSS changes would certainly improve it. I'd consider an offwhite background color, and a subtle border for your form fields.

IT is different, but im lazy and thats more to fill out then username and password, which is too much as well.

I'll save the madlibs for the kids' menu...this is non-linear and tough on users.

Hmm... so what happens if I accidentally type my password wrong?

WHAT? No confirm email address??????

Nope:

http://getsatisfaction.com/huffduffer/topics/have_you_consid...

interesting, but I don't see this catching on, nor do I see my grandparents getting this at all.

I'll keep using Wufoo.

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