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I'd love to see some numbers on "Lazy Registration". How many users does it save? How much effort goes into implementing it? I've seen the idea before and I'm

by lucumo 18y ago

I'd love to see some numbers on "Lazy Registration". How many users does it save? How much effort goes into implementing it? 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.

geeko 18y ago
Sometimes it's not the fact that you have to sign up but the way registration is done. "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 http://twitter.com/vpdn/status/1620213111 4) Most of the time I don't see why I have to sign up.
- lucumo 18y ago
  The NYT is a site where registration is unnecessary[1]. Registration was harder to do for them than it is to not have registration at all. 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.
  - patio11 18y ago
    makes business sense to them 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"

by lucumo 18y ago

geeko 18y ago

Sometimes it's not the fact that you have to sign up but the way registration is done. "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 http://twitter.com/vpdn/status/1620213111 4) Most of the time I don't see why I have to sign up.

lucumo 18y ago
The NYT is a site where registration is unnecessary[1]. Registration was harder to do for them than it is to not have registration at all. 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.
- patio11 18y ago
  makes business sense to them 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"