Examples of “Lazy Registration”
webjackalope.com
webjackalope.com
The language "save my info for later", and versions of that, are much better. It flips it around in the user's mind: "oh, now they're not asking me to give something up, they're helping me out"
The services that use the 'save my info for later' technique are most likely seen as easier because it is similar to how you use your local computer. You don't have an 'account' on your laptop. (Well, technically you do, but most people just believe that is just a password) You simply save something in your documents for later. By making the user believe that they aren't tied to anything, but just saving data for later, you can make them more likely to store their data on your servers.
While I understand what you're saying, I believe that would trip me up. I'm very much used to scanning for "Register", "Sign up", "Join" or "Create account".
I'm also unsure how much people really hate giving up their information. If anything, people are looking for places to hand over their information: Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc.
I think the problem is really that the more steps needed to convert your users, the more likely it is a part will give up before the end.
But we had exactly the problem you're describing: People are so used to scanning for "register"/"sign up" that some even assumed we were in invite-only beta.
We eventually changed that to a "Try it now -- no sign up required" button, which works better. The wording and UI is still tricky though: "Try it now", "trial account" etc. carry the connotation that it'll cost something later.
We've been meaning to A/B test a straightforward sign-up form for a while and measure effects on both conversion & retention, but unfortunately haven't gotten around to it yet.
Facebook Connect has accomplished most of the goals of OpenID, anyway. They should use that instead.
Facebook connect took off because of the site itself, how many people use it, and people like those who constantly tell me that I should have Facebook logins for my sites and apps (and no, I shouldn't).
so...
- stop insulting openid unless you got a better idea that isn't proprietary
- or if you cant think of a better solution than openid, help us get it out there because it beats the old solutions, and we can at least start improving until we can think of something better (i can't think of anything better...i gave it a shot for an afternoon, its theory is sound, and its very flexible and solves the problem just great)
OpenID is worse in every way to an internal authentication system. The only advantage is the mere dream of single sign-on, which has yet to come to fruition.
Also the point of the article you are commenting on points out that stackoverflow doesn't even need registration to fully use the site. Your cookie will identify you forever (or until you erase your cookies).
Be careful with this, it can backfire. Sometimes you come across a cool site that apparently doesn't require signup, then you spend some time creating something, and then at the last minute you get a message: "Ok, now to actually save your thing you just spent 10 minutes creating you JUST have to signup"...
It's so frustrating I usually just walk away in disgust. Don't pretend no signup is needed to use a feature if it's not true.
I've seen the idea before and I'm not really convinced. Sure, it sounds like a great idea, but let me offer some thoughts.
1. I have never been to 11 of the 12 sites mentioned in the article. Before I read this article, I knew exactly one site where lazy registration is actually practised: Stack Overflow. The idea has been floating around for some one or two years now. It hasn't really catched on. To me this suggests that many authors find it difficult to implement.
While difficulty in itself is not a problem, the time and effort invested in something needs to pay off, and it needs to pay off more than investing it into another feature. Opportunity costs apply here too.
2. How many potential users really care about registration? Does a "registration reddit-style" really put off that many people? In my experience, people will just pick their normal username and mash a laughably simple password into the appropriate box. There isn't much cognitive overhead there. This will, in my opinion, really only be a problem to people who have never registered an account before, anywhere.
Sure, you need to convince them that your product is useful. They won't explore further if they aren't convinced that it may provide some value to them. But it's probably a lot easier to put a tour on your website than to implement lazy registration.
3. If it does indeed give more users, do the extra users remain users for the same amount of time, or do they switch more easily to competitors? What happens to the users that you would've gotten with registration as well? Do they switch more easily? It seems to me that that's a very real possibility.
Currently, my intuition tells me to just use a registration form if you need it. In places where you don't need your users to be logged in, don't require them to be. Just let them do as much as possible without an account, but I wouldn't go for "unregistered accounts". That's too much effort for something of which you don't know how it will turn out.
"people will just pick their normal username and mash a laughably simple password into the appropriate box"
It's not as easy as it sounds.
1) My username might be taken 2) Often, I have to go to my email and activate the account. 3) Entering and remembering a password is not as simple as it sounds. New York Times is a good example on how not to do it: http://twitter.com/vpdn/status/1620213111 4) Most of the time I don't see why I have to sign up.
I was talking about situations where you store data on a user and link more data to a user. Sure, you can do that using some kind of token in a cookie, but if you want to give your users a name at least some of the time, registration is easier. At that point "unregistered users" add more work.
Your other examples are more a problem with the way registration is implemented, than with registration per se.
[1] From a technical point of view. It probably makes business sense to them, although I'm unsure how.
It lets them publish a rate card which includes something to the effect of "46% of our pageviews come from US zip codes with median household incomes in excess of $80,000"
You can then just keep using it or you can add a password and "claim" it later to get access to other features.
It just makes sense: don't take the information until you need it. I found another article on A List Apart that may of interest to people who liked this article. http://www.alistapart.com/articles/signupforms
From a technical standpoint, what's the best way to tackle this? Let's say you're using Rails or Django, you let a visitor create [some-widget] and then ask if they'd like to register ... do you store a reference to the new [some-widget] in a cookie until they do?
Then in a few places in your app you can check if you have the necessary information on file for the current user acocunt, and prompt the user to enter it if not (things like email address, a picture, real name, whatever it is you need). When they finally select a password they become a normal user of the site.