17 ms·

Don’t require a user to be interested twice: lessons on reducing signup friction

394 points by bbirnbaum 6y ago

itsArtur 6y ago
Is it a satire?
- gholap 6y ago
  Ah! Eop's law!
  - mwexler 6y ago
    Clever. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
scarface74 6y ago
Isn’t he kind of missing the obvious answer? Use federated login. Almost everyone has an account somewhere - Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google, Github, Twitter, Microsoft etc.
- rhacker 6y ago
  That depends on his audience probably. I hate it when I have to give permission to things in my Gmail account. https://www.bart.com.hk/why-you-need-to-be-very-careful-about-google-authorization-oauth/ https://www.bart.com.hk/why-you-need-to-be-very-careful-abou...
  - scarface74 6y ago
    I’m always very careful about the permission I give when using third party logins.
- arkitaip 6y ago
  Federated login introduces additional friction and is confusing to many customers.
- jschwartzi 6y ago
  And what happens if one of Google's robots shuts down my account one day? Do I lose access to your service too? It's not like there are any humans at Google to manually review any of this stuff because they don't care.
  - searchableguy 6y ago
    You don't if people are any competent and ask for an email in scope or ask you to enter a password with username later. That way, you have access as long as you have access to your email/password. It is great because the friction to start using the service is low but you can add additional stuff after you know that you want to use it. Few services do exactly this. They will lock down your account and ask you to add a password after a day.
- toastal 6y ago
  In Firefox, I have these accounts living in their own containers precisely because I don't want this overlap and I want them isolated from other activity.
- RyJones 6y ago
  The number of support tickets I used to get from people who were "missing data" because they signed up with Facebook, then logged in next time with Google and saw nothing, belays this.
- londons_explore 6y ago
  Most users don't understand the difference between "Sign in with Google" and "Give my Gmail password to this dodgy website".
- kristopolous 6y ago
  Those have their own problems. I have 4 Google accounts through different organizations, a business and personal Facebook, etc... These systems usually put log in and sign-up in the same flow so they are really saying: "Do you remember if you signed up before? Which one of the 7 ways of we're presenting as an array of 4 or so buttons with secondary account selectors did you use? If you pick the wrong one now you're going to get another account and have multiple discounts, reputation, credit, etc to manage. Good luck!" If you're lucky enough to still have the welcome email it'll sometimes narrow it, but not really. If I clicked on Facebook, selected my business account, then I'd get email in a Google account, which is exactly what I'd get if I had selected Google and the business account directly. However, that's a different service and a different token which is usually enough to mess things up and create a different account. What's worse is often if you're not logged in and then you get prompted to create an account in the flow. Let's say you haven't been there in 5 years. Now you don't know if you've signed up or not so you Russian roulette yourself and if you're lucky, this time, it'll be a new account. Because if it's the 5 year old account often it'll trigger all these legacy catch up things "oh redirect to the new terms of service. Give tour of new website, notify about mobile app, what were we doing? I completely forgot" On Priceline for instance, if you sign up for a credit card to get $100 off the flight and then click an existing account to complete the transaction and not a new account, it gets completely confused and your discount vanishes. It's a complex solution for a simple problem that appears to be friendly but in practice becomes user hostile because it's creating mountains of edge cases most have no interest in fully supporting. It also gives a very poor understanding of how many human users you have. Those account creating metrics sure look great! Then you dig in and realize a bunch of people have 3 or 4 accounts, mostly unwittingly because there's an interface to encourage creating multiple unconnected accounts. They don't realize it. They'll be on one device and stayed logged in. Then they get a new phone, forget how they logged in and bam, new account. Your users would really prefer if it was just 1 account. A lot of your support load would go down if it was 1 account, you'd get better sales, have higher reviews, but here we are anyway. And in the end, with a bunch of choices it's just another form of the memory game, which is the same cognitive user flow of the password, since 99% of users just reuse a handful of passwords on every site. What makes it worse is even though only one flow in the multiple login system is the one you want, every other one will still work. It's like being forced to take home the goat in a web version of Monty Halls Let's Make a Deal. Instead of seeing an error you're stuck with a new account that nobody on any side of the business flow wants.
- Reedx 6y ago
  I'm surprised that pattern is still being used so much. I implemented it on a site once and regretted it. Went back to email only. What happens with multiple login choices is people forget what service they used, or end up accidentally creating another account (if it couldn't be auto-linked), or delete their fb/twitter/whatever and then lose access to things they didn't intend. Or get banned and forcibly lose access. It also means you're relying on more 3rd party dependencies. And having the overheard of managing those, keeping updated with API/policy changes. It's one of those things that seems simpler at first, but ends up being more complicated on both sides.
- RonanTheGrey 6y ago
  The confusion that federated login has caused within our own product has driven us to remove it. We are going back to email only (we had been considering it for awhile, and then Apple requiring Apple Login along with the other options sealed the deal). The support surface only increases over time and we found it not to be worth it.
rbritton 6y ago
Know your target audience too. I'm not sure if I'm it, but reCAPTCHA gives me enough friction that I often abandon pages with it. Simply using Firefox's antifingerprinting feature plus some ad/tracker blocking is enough for it to be miserable every time.
- mister_hn 6y ago
  I abandon every website that promotes free trial period but asks directly for your credit card. Absolutely a no-go: let me first try it for free and then I will add the credit card details, if I'm interested
  - mushufasa 6y ago
    Then you may not have the problem deeply enough to need the solution. It depends on a lot on the context B2B vs B2C, but I've experienced that the B2B customers who won't sign up without an absolutely free trial are much much less likely to convert anyways, to the point where it's not necessarily worth the effort for sales + support.
    - Retailer 6y ago
      In B2B, it could be that the person who wants to try out the service is an employee of a company. He/She needs to first test the service before trying to convince their manager (or the company) to subscribe. Such people might not have a corporate credit card to put in, could be company policy that such subscriptions are handled by a different department. They might also not wish to use their personal credit card for corporate services.
      - fragmede 6y ago
        For large values of B, in B2B, employees have corporate cards, with discretionary spending, so that's something to consider. A SaaS product with annual purchasing, priced just under the discretionary spending limit (read: an employee can buy this and their boss will just rubber-stamp the request and not even give it a second thought), is far easier a purchase. However, if corporate has to get involved, the effort is approximately the same wether it costs $1,000 or $10,000 because a bunch of people have to get involved, committees formed, and studies done.
drivers99 6y ago
Speaking of lessons, the site is down for me right now, but here's an archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20200513153013/https://bbirnbaum.com/two-lessons-on-reducing-sign-up-friction/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200513153013/https://bbirnbaum...
bonestamp2 6y ago
The best and most simple onboarding process I've ever experienced was with expensify. I don't know if it's still like this, but you just enter your email address and you're in... your account is running and you're logged in. Everything else can be figured out later. Bots? Idle new accounts are probably deleted after a number of days. Password? A reset/creation link can be sent to your email the next time you try to login. Payment? That's only important if you're going to use the software -- it can be handled when appropriate. Unless your service has some major expense or limited resource associated with account setup (ex. assigning the user a new phone number), I would love to see more signups like this. The lack of friction made me feel so happy as a customer and I instantly had a positive impression of the service because it already felt like it was adding value by making my life easier. I wouldn't be surprised if this also has a positive impact on their conversion rate.
- JoshTriplett 6y ago
  That's fine as long as you send a welcome email immediately that says "If you didn't create this account, use this link and you'll never get another email at this address". I've seen services forget that, and then it's possible to sign up with someone else's email address, use the account, and have someone else get spammed or harassed. That needs to be part of your threat model. "What if a bot signs up" is about protecting your service and people using it. "What happens if someone signs up with someone else's information" is about protecting other people, who may have nothing to do with the service.
  - jlokier 6y ago
    > "If you didn't create this account, use this link and you'll never get another email at this address" If I get an unsolicited email for a service I don't recognise, that has a link in it and a message asking me to click on it, should I click on it? Commmon advice is don't click on links in mails you aren't expecting. It just confirms your address is real for spam harvesting.
    - Gene_Parmesan 6y ago
gav 6y ago
Sam at UserOnboard has teardowns of a bunch of onboarding flows. It's the single best reference I can suggest around optimizing the process: https://www.useronboard.com/ https://www.useronboard.com/
Causality1 6y ago
You can add "don't require a user to be more interested in order to get more interested." For example, it's annoying when I'm trying to decide where to eat and a restaurant's website won't show me a menu until I select a location and start an online order.
- londons_explore 6y ago
  The flip side of that is your annoyance when you've just settled on what to eat tonight, but then it says "Sorry, you're in Alaska. All menu items cost 50% more, and the exact thing you wanted isn't available in Alaska"
btbuildem 6y ago
Asking for an email up front is already too much. Let the user use your service, they'll create some "content" or "configuration" in it. Once they do that, they'll want to preserve / persist it, and then you can ask for an email address. They're much more likely to give you a real email address and validate it, because they're already invested.
Reason077 6y ago
I'm convinced one of the reasons Zoom is so successful (besides being a great product) is that there is no sign up required at all. Someone invites you to a conference and you just click the link, enter your name and go.
- kaetemi 6y ago
  That, and it basically just works even if you have huge connection jitter, even if you switch networks during a call, etc. Simply put, using it never annoys me. Reliability beats any fancy designer UX every time.
  - PascLeRasc 6y ago
    It helps that Zoom's UX is worlds better than Microsoft Teams. The persistent sidebar is fantastic, so is the spacebar-to-unmute shortcut.
- gav 6y ago
  Exactly. Imagine what Zoom would be like if you had to sign up, verify your email, schedule a meeting, and then invite people to that meeting.
vehemenz 6y ago
For future reference, don't host images from your blog on Google images. None of them are loading. PNG/8 or any decently compressed JPEG format will work if you have bandwidth limitations.
maltelandwehr 6y ago
Also important: • Let users use the product immediately after registration (if possible). Don't make them wait for the verification email. Can haunt them with pop-ups afterwards to get that verification and double-opt-in. • Support single sign-on via Google, Facebook, Apple, Twitter, etc. • When people try to login unsuccessfully (wrong password), send them an email to login via a link. This was a big growth hack for Uber to increase reactivation rates.
- dukoid 6y ago
  +1 for single-sign on (opposed to a gazillion of passwords). Why is manual signup still a thing at all? I'd expect people today to start with single sign-on.
  - ValentineC 6y ago
    My problem with a website having multiple SSO integrations is that sometimes I forget which service I used to sign up with.
    - dukoid 6y ago
      I have a fixed priority order, but sometimes they add a higher priority later.... :-/ I think it's typically just used as an authority to confirm the email address, so one could be registered with multiple providers and should still work?
njhaveri 6y ago
I had the exact same experience on my app's website (https://mimestream.com https://mimestream.com) as well. I think initially, I was nervous about offering a beta download, so I wanted to manually vet each subscriber and manually send invites. Of course, even a 2 or 3 hour gap resulted in very poor conversion. Presenting the beta download link immediately after a user provided an email, obviously, has resulted in a world of difference.
davidajackson 6y ago
Sites that make you create an account and then re route you to login drive me nuts. Can't imagine it helps with conversions either.
muffinman26 6y ago
A corollary to this, don't ask users for information that you don't need. There are a number of popular web services (Spotify was the most recent) that I haven't signed up for because they keep asking for information I don't want to give them or had to think about, such as gender. Every time I'd start the sign-up process, fill in some information, then be confronted with a question where I wasn't sure what the answer was or why I needed to provide the information, and give up. This even delayed me creating an email account by about a year.
- Retailer 6y ago
  >>> don't ask users for information that you don't need. <<< Agree. This is especially important today where information is being traded without user's knowledge. Asking for information you don't need automatically makes privacy conscious folks suspicious of your site/service. It also gives the impression that you (the business/service) haven't 'thought' through your process (maybe you just did a copy and paste from a template somewhere)
- cheungyinglon 6y ago
  Is there any data on whether this information is even accurate when it's filled out? I just fill out these kinds of fields randomly. Every. Single. Time.
  - mtnGoat 6y ago
    every website i go to things i was born on Jan 1, 1980. i thought everyone was giving junk info to all the websites. :)
fuzzybear3965 6y ago
I'm feeling a bit thick. Regarding the change to the sign-up process... Originally: > Users couldn’t get started on their own. They had to first leave their email address and then wait for me to send them an email with a link allowing them to register and start building their Cortado email. Afterly: > As soon as users click the submit button, they get an email verification message in their inbox, which they can click on to set a password and get started. So, what changed? In both cases users have to submit their email address and interact with a(n) (automated?) registration/sign-up email. In the second case there's the added hurdle of a captcha (which sounds worse).
- renewiltord 6y ago
  Manual vs auto approval.
- jstanley 6y ago
  The second case is immediate, so the user can do it as a single mental session.
- zomglings 6y ago
  With the first process, they would leave an e-mail and then author would reach out to them maybe a few days later and maybe a few weeks later telling them they could sign up. With the new process, they go through the signup process immediately.
  - fuzzybear3965 6y ago
    Oh, "wait for me" doesn't refer to an automatically-generated signup email ("me" is not "server I provisioned"). "wait for me" literally means "wait for human to create email and send it to new user". Wow, yeah. That doesn't seem good.
    - zomglings 6y ago
      It's not that bad, actually. When a product is really early - still being developed, basically - you want to control the number of users you expose to it. Every batch of users will improve the product but it is unlikely that users will stick around beyond one or two uses. So you drip it out to users in small batches, and "wait for me" really lends itself well to this.
gk1 6y ago
It’s a good lesson but let’s not forget that completing the signup is not the goal in itself. If you look at post-signup user activity you will find many users stick around for a few minutes and then leave, never to return again. If someone can’t be bothered to click a verification email, then removing that step is not going to magically turn them into an active user. More likely they will be one of the many people who leave after a few minutes. I do a signup/onboarding optimization for startups, and here’s what I found from a recent project: 1) The verification email was NOT a significant bottleneck to signups. That is, most people clicked the link. 2) Removing the verification step did NOT have a meaningful impact on conversion rates. If you don’t have a problem with user quality then sure, avoid the verification step. But if you have a good reason for the verification step then don’t sweat the drop-off rates. And more importantly: Treat signups as a leading indicator of success, not the ultimate goal. Edit: On second reading I see the author is talking about a verification step that requires an admin approval, which could take hours. Yeah, don’t do that.
- colinmorelli 6y ago
  Following on to this and hopefully making it more explicit: your goal should typically be to accelerate users towards their "magic moment" (the moment when the value of your software clicks, they get it, and they suddenly can't imagine living without it), as quickly as reasonably possible. A couple of companies that did a great job at this: - Slack used to (they still might I just haven't created a new workspace in a while) have Slackbot message you to setup your profile so that you're literally using the software as part of onboarding. - Aircall has you get a phone number and place a call directly from your browser, then use your phone to call that number back and have it ring in your browser. Focus on the the path to that magic moment first, ensuring that users who do sign up have an incredible onboarding experience and understand the value. Otherwise, you're just pouring water into a leaky funnel, and you might end up even worse off. You'll spend the same amount of time and money on support for your leads, but few of them will ever convert to dollars.
  - wpietri 6y ago
    Absolutely. I've always been impressed with software that lets me get the magic moment first. E.g., online visual design programs that just let me try the tool in a sandbox. Or the way Github lets you examine and download software without ever signing in. I'm much more likely to give somebody something valuable (e.g., my contact details) if they've given me something valuable first.
pmarreck 6y ago
I would love this browser experience when visiting a new website: "<name of site> would like to create an account for you with your (previously vetted) profile data and email. Shall I create a random password and save it to your secure Google account before agreeing?" And then hitting "Yes" does just that, and I'm in. The same workflow could be used for shipping info and CC info.
- etrabroline 6y ago
  Is oauth that?
Spooky23 6y ago
I think the issue with the initial scenario was that verification emails were kicked off manually and took a long, variable amount of time. Verification wasn't the problem, the delay was imo. I have a <common-name>@gmail.com account and get to see the shitshow that happens when people signup for services don't validate email. Many people screw up email entry and end up with accounts outside of their control. What I see, every year: - $50-200 of gift cards emailed to me from a guy in Australia. - Various memberships for gyms - Various loyalty programs. - An active airline points program, which sent a password request in cleartext a few years ago.
pmarreck 6y ago
The third lesson might be: Don't pick a name for your service that when googling it results in a full page of links to the coffee style and not to your service. (So how do I actually visit Cortado??) EDIT: Found it after clicking around to your About page: https://cortadomail.com/ https://cortadomail.com/ And what's the stack?? :)
jedberg 6y ago
> I sent registration instructions to all of them within 8 hours, but only 6 people clicked the link in that email. I think they drew the wrong conclusion from their data. I don't think it was the double signup that was the problem, it was the delay between signing up and getting the confirmation email. I think the real lesson here is that confirmation emails need to be short (addressed in the article) and quick. I know that if I don't get the confirmation email within about a minute, I give up.
- chanmad29 6y ago
  100% agree. Spoken like a user and not a PM.
skapadia 6y ago
Ben - thanks for sharing what you learned. I highly recommend reading "Don't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability". It doesn't take long to read but is packed with wisdom. It covers the points that Ben makes in his blog post. https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Think-Revisited-Usability/dp/0321965515 https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Think-Revisited-Usability/d...
kion 6y ago
> Only 38% of people did this. If I had instead captured everyone as soon as they showed enough interest to leave an email address, I could’ve increased my conversion rate by 250%. How many of these were real losses and how many were people who put the wrong email address in the box, only to realize when they didn't get the verification email? I have a very early gmail address, first initial + last, name. I can't tell you how many verification emails I get that I never signed up for. Those aren't the bad ones though, the bad ones are when I get emails about Kay's upcoming surgery and follow-up appointments, Kim's yarn orders and Ken's mortgage documents. (All of these are real examples). Strong email verification flows aren't just anti-bot. They're a level of defense against clumsy users.
aroberge 6y ago
Please, keep the confirmation email. I get tons of email sent to one of my account because people register for some mailing list or other service and enter MY email address as theirs. If I get an email to confirm, I can safely ignore it and be done with it. Otherwise, it is a major annoyance. ReCaptcha may be seen as useful to cut down on the number of bots but it screws things up royally when trying to navigate in private mode, or using a VPN.
- ValentineC 6y ago
  > Please, keep the confirmation email. I get tons of email sent to one of my account because people register for some mailing list or other service and enter MY email address as theirs. If I get an email to confirm, I can safely ignore it and be done with it. Otherwise, it is a major annoyance. Seconding this. As a holder of firstname at a-mainstream-email-service, I've had to unsubscribe to mailing lists far too often. If a service doesn't offer me a way to unsubscribe, sometimes I have to recover the offending account's password and request for the account to be deleted.
  - searchableguy 6y ago
    Why not use an obscure email? I have never had to deal with that.
godelski 6y ago
One of the biggest mistakes I constantly see is that they require an email for you to even see the product or what it does. All this leads to is me never seeing your product. I'm sure you spent a lot of time on it, but I get too much spam as it is. I don't need more just to figureout what you're trying to sell me. I mean, that's your job: to sell to me. It honestly amazes me how often I see this. No screenshots or even a description. Maybe a line or two and the page looks mostly like an email scraper. SELL ME YOUR PRODUCT.
barell 6y ago
Definitely missing a proper CTA (call to action) button in the welcome email. It should stand out clearly in the center of the email.
- __d 6y ago
  Also, it says "Click to register" ... which I feel like I've already done. I think the wording should be revised to say something more like "Confirm your registration".
swyx 6y ago
good read! also got me interested in the app :)
deleted 6y ago
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29athrowaway 6y ago
Gitlab requires you to sign up using your real name, Github doesn't. I would use gitlab if it was not for that.
XCSme 6y ago
I don't really see the useful insights that the article tries to provide. Yes, if the user wants to register and you send the confirmation email now instead of 8 hours later it will be better. Yes, having more stepts to sign-up results in lower conversion rates, as each new step is a new chance for the user to drop. Keep in mind that you also have to convert relevant users otherwise you would just end up with a bunch of inactive accounts, which is not good, at least not if your goal is more than collecting emails.
paulcnichols 6y ago
This is true, but I think there's something to be said about the strength of your product market fit if users put up with really shitty user experience.
deleted 6y ago
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chrisMyzel 6y ago
We implemented a random fake client-HED34A@mycompany.io account being automatically created upon a user hit's our 'Get Started' Button. The user can then lateron decide to create a real account. If our client wants to come back later they can either write down their fake & random email@mycompany.io & login just with that (it's only known by them) or enter their real address
demarq 6y ago
> I was worried (unrealistically) that I’d get too many users too quickly 20 year old me after putting on some AXE body spray
leonroy 6y ago
The best signup experience I’ve seen is at nextdns: https://nextdns.io/ https://nextdns.io/ I clicked on Try it free expecting to go from a typical startup Wordpress site to a JavaScript signup form where I’d fill in an email, password etc. Instead, bam, I’m in the app with an anonymous account and ready to roll. A big button up top lets me add my email and password later if I like what I’m seeing. Really nice work.
mkchoi212 6y ago
From a mobile developer's perspective, I feel like a lot of these problems can be solved by using "Sign in with [Blah]" buttons. It requires a 1-2 taps for the user the sign in and almost always requires no email verification. Seeing that Sign in With Apple is also available on Safari, maybe this trend will slowly creep into the web and eliminate some of the problems the author was talking about.
musicale 6y ago
Cortado seems like an OK service, and I get that it wants an email address since it works over email. But regarding "signup friction" – the best way to reduce signup friction is to eliminate the need for signups. I'd like a version of Cortado that was hosted and just used a URL rather than sending junk into my inbox. Maybe call it Cortado Reader or something. Or better yet, some sort of syndication protocol (we could call it RSSS for Ridiculously Simple Syndication System) for the web.

394 points by bbirnbaum 6y ago

itsArtur 6y ago

Is it a satire?

gholap 6y ago
Ah! Eop's law!
- mwexler 6y ago
  Clever. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

scarface74 6y ago

Isn’t he kind of missing the obvious answer? Use federated login. Almost everyone has an account somewhere - Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google, Github, Twitter, Microsoft etc.

rhacker 6y ago
That depends on his audience probably. I hate it when I have to give permission to things in my Gmail account. https://www.bart.com.hk/why-you-need-to-be-very-careful-about-google-authorization-oauth/ https://www.bart.com.hk/why-you-need-to-be-very-careful-abou...
- scarface74 6y ago
  I’m always very careful about the permission I give when using third party logins.
arkitaip 6y ago
Federated login introduces additional friction and is confusing to many customers.
jschwartzi 6y ago
And what happens if one of Google's robots shuts down my account one day? Do I lose access to your service too? It's not like there are any humans at Google to manually review any of this stuff because they don't care.
- searchableguy 6y ago
  You don't if people are any competent and ask for an email in scope or ask you to enter a password with username later. That way, you have access as long as you have access to your email/password. It is great because the friction to start using the service is low but you can add additional stuff after you know that you want to use it. Few services do exactly this. They will lock down your account and ask you to add a password after a day.
toastal 6y ago
In Firefox, I have these accounts living in their own containers precisely because I don't want this overlap and I want them isolated from other activity.
RyJones 6y ago
The number of support tickets I used to get from people who were "missing data" because they signed up with Facebook, then logged in next time with Google and saw nothing, belays this.
londons_explore 6y ago
Most users don't understand the difference between "Sign in with Google" and "Give my Gmail password to this dodgy website".
kristopolous 6y ago
Those have their own problems. I have 4 Google accounts through different organizations, a business and personal Facebook, etc... These systems usually put log in and sign-up in the same flow so they are really saying: "Do you remember if you signed up before? Which one of the 7 ways of we're presenting as an array of 4 or so buttons with secondary account selectors did you use? If you pick the wrong one now you're going to get another account and have multiple discounts, reputation, credit, etc to manage. Good luck!" If you're lucky enough to still have the welcome email it'll sometimes narrow it, but not really. If I clicked on Facebook, selected my business account, then I'd get email in a Google account, which is exactly what I'd get if I had selected Google and the business account directly. However, that's a different service and a different token which is usually enough to mess things up and create a different account. What's worse is often if you're not logged in and then you get prompted to create an account in the flow. Let's say you haven't been there in 5 years. Now you don't know if you've signed up or not so you Russian roulette yourself and if you're lucky, this time, it'll be a new account. Because if it's the 5 year old account often it'll trigger all these legacy catch up things "oh redirect to the new terms of service. Give tour of new website, notify about mobile app, what were we doing? I completely forgot" On Priceline for instance, if you sign up for a credit card to get $100 off the flight and then click an existing account to complete the transaction and not a new account, it gets completely confused and your discount vanishes. It's a complex solution for a simple problem that appears to be friendly but in practice becomes user hostile because it's creating mountains of edge cases most have no interest in fully supporting. It also gives a very poor understanding of how many human users you have. Those account creating metrics sure look great! Then you dig in and realize a bunch of people have 3 or 4 accounts, mostly unwittingly because there's an interface to encourage creating multiple unconnected accounts. They don't realize it. They'll be on one device and stayed logged in. Then they get a new phone, forget how they logged in and bam, new account. Your users would really prefer if it was just 1 account. A lot of your support load would go down if it was 1 account, you'd get better sales, have higher reviews, but here we are anyway. And in the end, with a bunch of choices it's just another form of the memory game, which is the same cognitive user flow of the password, since 99% of users just reuse a handful of passwords on every site. What makes it worse is even though only one flow in the multiple login system is the one you want, every other one will still work. It's like being forced to take home the goat in a web version of Monty Halls Let's Make a Deal. Instead of seeing an error you're stuck with a new account that nobody on any side of the business flow wants.
Reedx 6y ago
I'm surprised that pattern is still being used so much. I implemented it on a site once and regretted it. Went back to email only. What happens with multiple login choices is people forget what service they used, or end up accidentally creating another account (if it couldn't be auto-linked), or delete their fb/twitter/whatever and then lose access to things they didn't intend. Or get banned and forcibly lose access. It also means you're relying on more 3rd party dependencies. And having the overheard of managing those, keeping updated with API/policy changes. It's one of those things that seems simpler at first, but ends up being more complicated on both sides.
RonanTheGrey 6y ago
The confusion that federated login has caused within our own product has driven us to remove it. We are going back to email only (we had been considering it for awhile, and then Apple requiring Apple Login along with the other options sealed the deal). The support surface only increases over time and we found it not to be worth it.

rbritton 6y ago

Know your target audience too. I'm not sure if I'm it, but reCAPTCHA gives me enough friction that I often abandon pages with it. Simply using Firefox's antifingerprinting feature plus some ad/tracker blocking is enough for it to be miserable every time.

mister_hn 6y ago
I abandon every website that promotes free trial period but asks directly for your credit card. Absolutely a no-go: let me first try it for free and then I will add the credit card details, if I'm interested
- mushufasa 6y ago
  Then you may not have the problem deeply enough to need the solution. It depends on a lot on the context B2B vs B2C, but I've experienced that the B2B customers who won't sign up without an absolutely free trial are much much less likely to convert anyways, to the point where it's not necessarily worth the effort for sales + support.
  - Retailer 6y ago
    In B2B, it could be that the person who wants to try out the service is an employee of a company. He/She needs to first test the service before trying to convince their manager (or the company) to subscribe. Such people might not have a corporate credit card to put in, could be company policy that such subscriptions are handled by a different department. They might also not wish to use their personal credit card for corporate services.
    - fragmede 6y ago
      For large values of B, in B2B, employees have corporate cards, with discretionary spending, so that's something to consider. A SaaS product with annual purchasing, priced just under the discretionary spending limit (read: an employee can buy this and their boss will just rubber-stamp the request and not even give it a second thought), is far easier a purchase. However, if corporate has to get involved, the effort is approximately the same wether it costs $1,000 or $10,000 because a bunch of people have to get involved, committees formed, and studies done.

drivers99 6y ago

Speaking of lessons, the site is down for me right now, but here's an archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20200513153013/https://bbirnbaum.com/two-lessons-on-reducing-sign-up-friction/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200513153013/https://bbirnbaum...

bonestamp2 6y ago

The best and most simple onboarding process I've ever experienced was with expensify. I don't know if it's still like this, but you just enter your email address and you're in... your account is running and you're logged in. Everything else can be figured out later. Bots? Idle new accounts are probably deleted after a number of days. Password? A reset/creation link can be sent to your email the next time you try to login. Payment? That's only important if you're going to use the software -- it can be handled when appropriate. Unless your service has some major expense or limited resource associated with account setup (ex. assigning the user a new phone number), I would love to see more signups like this. The lack of friction made me feel so happy as a customer and I instantly had a positive impression of the service because it already felt like it was adding value by making my life easier. I wouldn't be surprised if this also has a positive impact on their conversion rate.

JoshTriplett 6y ago
That's fine as long as you send a welcome email immediately that says "If you didn't create this account, use this link and you'll never get another email at this address". I've seen services forget that, and then it's possible to sign up with someone else's email address, use the account, and have someone else get spammed or harassed. That needs to be part of your threat model. "What if a bot signs up" is about protecting your service and people using it. "What happens if someone signs up with someone else's information" is about protecting other people, who may have nothing to do with the service.
- jlokier 6y ago
  > "If you didn't create this account, use this link and you'll never get another email at this address" If I get an unsolicited email for a service I don't recognise, that has a link in it and a message asking me to click on it, should I click on it? Commmon advice is don't click on links in mails you aren't expecting. It just confirms your address is real for spam harvesting.
  - Gene_Parmesan 6y ago

gav 6y ago

Sam at UserOnboard has teardowns of a bunch of onboarding flows. It's the single best reference I can suggest around optimizing the process: https://www.useronboard.com/ https://www.useronboard.com/

Causality1 6y ago

You can add "don't require a user to be more interested in order to get more interested." For example, it's annoying when I'm trying to decide where to eat and a restaurant's website won't show me a menu until I select a location and start an online order.

londons_explore 6y ago
The flip side of that is your annoyance when you've just settled on what to eat tonight, but then it says "Sorry, you're in Alaska. All menu items cost 50% more, and the exact thing you wanted isn't available in Alaska"

btbuildem 6y ago

Asking for an email up front is already too much. Let the user use your service, they'll create some "content" or "configuration" in it. Once they do that, they'll want to preserve / persist it, and then you can ask for an email address. They're much more likely to give you a real email address and validate it, because they're already invested.

Reason077 6y ago

I'm convinced one of the reasons Zoom is so successful (besides being a great product) is that there is no sign up required at all. Someone invites you to a conference and you just click the link, enter your name and go.

kaetemi 6y ago
That, and it basically just works even if you have huge connection jitter, even if you switch networks during a call, etc. Simply put, using it never annoys me. Reliability beats any fancy designer UX every time.
- PascLeRasc 6y ago
  It helps that Zoom's UX is worlds better than Microsoft Teams. The persistent sidebar is fantastic, so is the spacebar-to-unmute shortcut.
gav 6y ago
Exactly. Imagine what Zoom would be like if you had to sign up, verify your email, schedule a meeting, and then invite people to that meeting.

vehemenz 6y ago

For future reference, don't host images from your blog on Google images. None of them are loading. PNG/8 or any decently compressed JPEG format will work if you have bandwidth limitations.

maltelandwehr 6y ago

Also important: • Let users use the product immediately after registration (if possible). Don't make them wait for the verification email. Can haunt them with pop-ups afterwards to get that verification and double-opt-in. • Support single sign-on via Google, Facebook, Apple, Twitter, etc. • When people try to login unsuccessfully (wrong password), send them an email to login via a link. This was a big growth hack for Uber to increase reactivation rates.

dukoid 6y ago
+1 for single-sign on (opposed to a gazillion of passwords). Why is manual signup still a thing at all? I'd expect people today to start with single sign-on.
- ValentineC 6y ago
  My problem with a website having multiple SSO integrations is that sometimes I forget which service I used to sign up with.
  - dukoid 6y ago
    I have a fixed priority order, but sometimes they add a higher priority later.... :-/ I think it's typically just used as an authority to confirm the email address, so one could be registered with multiple providers and should still work?

njhaveri 6y ago

I had the exact same experience on my app's website (https://mimestream.com https://mimestream.com) as well. I think initially, I was nervous about offering a beta download, so I wanted to manually vet each subscriber and manually send invites. Of course, even a 2 or 3 hour gap resulted in very poor conversion. Presenting the beta download link immediately after a user provided an email, obviously, has resulted in a world of difference.

davidajackson 6y ago

Sites that make you create an account and then re route you to login drive me nuts. Can't imagine it helps with conversions either.

muffinman26 6y ago

A corollary to this, don't ask users for information that you don't need. There are a number of popular web services (Spotify was the most recent) that I haven't signed up for because they keep asking for information I don't want to give them or had to think about, such as gender. Every time I'd start the sign-up process, fill in some information, then be confronted with a question where I wasn't sure what the answer was or why I needed to provide the information, and give up. This even delayed me creating an email account by about a year.

Retailer 6y ago
>>> don't ask users for information that you don't need. <<< Agree. This is especially important today where information is being traded without user's knowledge. Asking for information you don't need automatically makes privacy conscious folks suspicious of your site/service. It also gives the impression that you (the business/service) haven't 'thought' through your process (maybe you just did a copy and paste from a template somewhere)
cheungyinglon 6y ago
Is there any data on whether this information is even accurate when it's filled out? I just fill out these kinds of fields randomly. Every. Single. Time.
- mtnGoat 6y ago
  every website i go to things i was born on Jan 1, 1980. i thought everyone was giving junk info to all the websites. :)

fuzzybear3965 6y ago

I'm feeling a bit thick. Regarding the change to the sign-up process... Originally: > Users couldn’t get started on their own. They had to first leave their email address and then wait for me to send them an email with a link allowing them to register and start building their Cortado email. Afterly: > As soon as users click the submit button, they get an email verification message in their inbox, which they can click on to set a password and get started. So, what changed? In both cases users have to submit their email address and interact with a(n) (automated?) registration/sign-up email. In the second case there's the added hurdle of a captcha (which sounds worse).

renewiltord 6y ago
Manual vs auto approval.
jstanley 6y ago
The second case is immediate, so the user can do it as a single mental session.
zomglings 6y ago
With the first process, they would leave an e-mail and then author would reach out to them maybe a few days later and maybe a few weeks later telling them they could sign up. With the new process, they go through the signup process immediately.
- fuzzybear3965 6y ago
  Oh, "wait for me" doesn't refer to an automatically-generated signup email ("me" is not "server I provisioned"). "wait for me" literally means "wait for human to create email and send it to new user". Wow, yeah. That doesn't seem good.
  - zomglings 6y ago
    It's not that bad, actually. When a product is really early - still being developed, basically - you want to control the number of users you expose to it. Every batch of users will improve the product but it is unlikely that users will stick around beyond one or two uses. So you drip it out to users in small batches, and "wait for me" really lends itself well to this.

gk1 6y ago

It’s a good lesson but let’s not forget that completing the signup is not the goal in itself. If you look at post-signup user activity you will find many users stick around for a few minutes and then leave, never to return again. If someone can’t be bothered to click a verification email, then removing that step is not going to magically turn them into an active user. More likely they will be one of the many people who leave after a few minutes. I do a signup/onboarding optimization for startups, and here’s what I found from a recent project: 1) The verification email was NOT a significant bottleneck to signups. That is, most people clicked the link. 2) Removing the verification step did NOT have a meaningful impact on conversion rates. If you don’t have a problem with user quality then sure, avoid the verification step. But if you have a good reason for the verification step then don’t sweat the drop-off rates. And more importantly: Treat signups as a leading indicator of success, not the ultimate goal. Edit: On second reading I see the author is talking about a verification step that requires an admin approval, which could take hours. Yeah, don’t do that.

colinmorelli 6y ago
Following on to this and hopefully making it more explicit: your goal should typically be to accelerate users towards their "magic moment" (the moment when the value of your software clicks, they get it, and they suddenly can't imagine living without it), as quickly as reasonably possible. A couple of companies that did a great job at this: - Slack used to (they still might I just haven't created a new workspace in a while) have Slackbot message you to setup your profile so that you're literally using the software as part of onboarding. - Aircall has you get a phone number and place a call directly from your browser, then use your phone to call that number back and have it ring in your browser. Focus on the the path to that magic moment first, ensuring that users who do sign up have an incredible onboarding experience and understand the value. Otherwise, you're just pouring water into a leaky funnel, and you might end up even worse off. You'll spend the same amount of time and money on support for your leads, but few of them will ever convert to dollars.
- wpietri 6y ago
  Absolutely. I've always been impressed with software that lets me get the magic moment first. E.g., online visual design programs that just let me try the tool in a sandbox. Or the way Github lets you examine and download software without ever signing in. I'm much more likely to give somebody something valuable (e.g., my contact details) if they've given me something valuable first.

pmarreck 6y ago

I would love this browser experience when visiting a new website: "<name of site> would like to create an account for you with your (previously vetted) profile data and email. Shall I create a random password and save it to your secure Google account before agreeing?" And then hitting "Yes" does just that, and I'm in. The same workflow could be used for shipping info and CC info.

etrabroline 6y ago
Is oauth that?

Spooky23 6y ago

I think the issue with the initial scenario was that verification emails were kicked off manually and took a long, variable amount of time. Verification wasn't the problem, the delay was imo. I have a <common-name>@gmail.com account and get to see the shitshow that happens when people signup for services don't validate email. Many people screw up email entry and end up with accounts outside of their control. What I see, every year: - $50-200 of gift cards emailed to me from a guy in Australia. - Various memberships for gyms - Various loyalty programs. - An active airline points program, which sent a password request in cleartext a few years ago.

pmarreck 6y ago

The third lesson might be: Don't pick a name for your service that when googling it results in a full page of links to the coffee style and not to your service. (So how do I actually visit Cortado??) EDIT: Found it after clicking around to your About page: https://cortadomail.com/ https://cortadomail.com/ And what's the stack?? :)

jedberg 6y ago

> I sent registration instructions to all of them within 8 hours, but only 6 people clicked the link in that email. I think they drew the wrong conclusion from their data. I don't think it was the double signup that was the problem, it was the delay between signing up and getting the confirmation email. I think the real lesson here is that confirmation emails need to be short (addressed in the article) and quick. I know that if I don't get the confirmation email within about a minute, I give up.

chanmad29 6y ago
100% agree. Spoken like a user and not a PM.

skapadia 6y ago

Ben - thanks for sharing what you learned. I highly recommend reading "Don't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability". It doesn't take long to read but is packed with wisdom. It covers the points that Ben makes in his blog post. https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Think-Revisited-Usability/dp/0321965515 https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Think-Revisited-Usability/d...

kion 6y ago

> Only 38% of people did this. If I had instead captured everyone as soon as they showed enough interest to leave an email address, I could’ve increased my conversion rate by 250%. How many of these were real losses and how many were people who put the wrong email address in the box, only to realize when they didn't get the verification email? I have a very early gmail address, first initial + last, name. I can't tell you how many verification emails I get that I never signed up for. Those aren't the bad ones though, the bad ones are when I get emails about Kay's upcoming surgery and follow-up appointments, Kim's yarn orders and Ken's mortgage documents. (All of these are real examples). Strong email verification flows aren't just anti-bot. They're a level of defense against clumsy users.

aroberge 6y ago

Please, keep the confirmation email. I get tons of email sent to one of my account because people register for some mailing list or other service and enter MY email address as theirs. If I get an email to confirm, I can safely ignore it and be done with it. Otherwise, it is a major annoyance. ReCaptcha may be seen as useful to cut down on the number of bots but it screws things up royally when trying to navigate in private mode, or using a VPN.

ValentineC 6y ago
> Please, keep the confirmation email. I get tons of email sent to one of my account because people register for some mailing list or other service and enter MY email address as theirs. If I get an email to confirm, I can safely ignore it and be done with it. Otherwise, it is a major annoyance. Seconding this. As a holder of firstname at a-mainstream-email-service, I've had to unsubscribe to mailing lists far too often. If a service doesn't offer me a way to unsubscribe, sometimes I have to recover the offending account's password and request for the account to be deleted.
- searchableguy 6y ago
  Why not use an obscure email? I have never had to deal with that.

godelski 6y ago

One of the biggest mistakes I constantly see is that they require an email for you to even see the product or what it does. All this leads to is me never seeing your product. I'm sure you spent a lot of time on it, but I get too much spam as it is. I don't need more just to figureout what you're trying to sell me. I mean, that's your job: to sell to me. It honestly amazes me how often I see this. No screenshots or even a description. Maybe a line or two and the page looks mostly like an email scraper. SELL ME YOUR PRODUCT.

barell 6y ago

Definitely missing a proper CTA (call to action) button in the welcome email. It should stand out clearly in the center of the email.

__d 6y ago
Also, it says "Click to register" ... which I feel like I've already done. I think the wording should be revised to say something more like "Confirm your registration".

swyx 6y ago

good read! also got me interested in the app :)

deleted 6y ago

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29athrowaway 6y ago

Gitlab requires you to sign up using your real name, Github doesn't. I would use gitlab if it was not for that.

XCSme 6y ago

I don't really see the useful insights that the article tries to provide. Yes, if the user wants to register and you send the confirmation email now instead of 8 hours later it will be better. Yes, having more stepts to sign-up results in lower conversion rates, as each new step is a new chance for the user to drop. Keep in mind that you also have to convert relevant users otherwise you would just end up with a bunch of inactive accounts, which is not good, at least not if your goal is more than collecting emails.

paulcnichols 6y ago

This is true, but I think there's something to be said about the strength of your product market fit if users put up with really shitty user experience.

deleted 6y ago

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chrisMyzel 6y ago

We implemented a random fake client-HED34A@mycompany.io account being automatically created upon a user hit's our 'Get Started' Button. The user can then lateron decide to create a real account. If our client wants to come back later they can either write down their fake & random email@mycompany.io & login just with that (it's only known by them) or enter their real address

demarq 6y ago

> I was worried (unrealistically) that I’d get too many users too quickly 20 year old me after putting on some AXE body spray

leonroy 6y ago

The best signup experience I’ve seen is at nextdns: https://nextdns.io/ https://nextdns.io/ I clicked on Try it free expecting to go from a typical startup Wordpress site to a JavaScript signup form where I’d fill in an email, password etc. Instead, bam, I’m in the app with an anonymous account and ready to roll. A big button up top lets me add my email and password later if I like what I’m seeing. Really nice work.

mkchoi212 6y ago

From a mobile developer's perspective, I feel like a lot of these problems can be solved by using "Sign in with [Blah]" buttons. It requires a 1-2 taps for the user the sign in and almost always requires no email verification. Seeing that Sign in With Apple is also available on Safari, maybe this trend will slowly creep into the web and eliminate some of the problems the author was talking about.

musicale 6y ago

Cortado seems like an OK service, and I get that it wants an email address since it works over email. But regarding "signup friction" – the best way to reduce signup friction is to eliminate the need for signups. I'd like a version of Cortado that was hosted and just used a URL rather than sending junk into my inbox. Maybe call it Cortado Reader or something. Or better yet, some sort of syndication protocol (we could call it RSSS for Ridiculously Simple Syndication System) for the web.