Registration Form Fail: How Much Is Too Much Information?
Posted: October 23rd, 2009 | Author: ian | Filed under: Usability | Tags: registration, Usability | No Comments »I recently came across a contest run by the Globe and Mail, asking readers to vote on their favourite user-submitted stories.
Getting users to vote on content is a great way to encourage interactivity. But here’s where many companies fall down: they ask for too much information.
Turns out you can’t vote without registering first. Fair enough. Here’s the form:
The first problem is it doesn’t indicate which fields are mandatory. This means a user fills out sections, hits submit, and suddenly gets error messages asking them to fill in the blanks (which is exactly what I did).
The second and bigger problem: why are they asking for so much personal information? All it takes to track a voting system is a user’s IP or setting a cookie. They don’t actually need anything else.
Of course, part of the contest was probably to stimulate subscribers to their website. Yet asking for so much information likely cuts their completion rate enormously.
You need my entire address, two telephone numbers, and my birthdate? Really?
As a rule, especially in this age of identity theft, companies should ask for the least amount of information possible. Usually this means little more than a name and an email.
That’s it.
