11–19 of 19 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Deception. More verbosely, you allowed the user to assume something, yet contradicted this assumption. Somewhat similar when a woman strings a man along, then requests payment.
I would consider it deception if I was being told it was free the entire time until the sign up step told me it cost money. Allowing me to try this before registering is more likely to get me to sign up.
Another kind of evil (but effective) approach is to allow the user to do all those post-signup activities (like set up a dashboard or create some content), and then say "now sign up" at the end. They're already invested, so you get better conversion.
Certainly not evil. It allows me (as a user) to properly gauge whether or not I'm interested in your service before I provide any personal information. It's a win for me.
One thing I've found is that if the purpose/value proposition of your product isn't already fairly obvious when a user comes to your site, you should spend more time in marketing the product and educating potential customers instead of trying to attract people who are pretty much clueless about what you do. On one of my web apps, having to sign up was the single most voiced complaint about the site, even though signup literally took less than five seconds.
While there's some quality fodder there, I couldn't get beyond this line: "I’ll bet that the time-to-signup isn’t an important anxiety factor." This isn't the only reason that sign-ups have been pared down; the current trend of thought on the matter is that it also reduces barriers to conversion. Engaging your audience without making them jump through numerous hoops is a great practice, even if that means the occasio…
Analytics could definitely be one of those times. If your site is being Slashdotted, your priority is going to be getting quick access to real-time data about traffic flows, and not messing about with Google Analytics (which until recently, didn't even cover real time).
I'm guessing the site in question is GoSquared (the sign up process matches, at least) - and I've worked on a couple of sites where I've installed GoSquared precisely because I knew how quick it was to install.
It is for me. When I'm looking to try out a product, I hate having to jump through hoops just to get to the download link. Fill in 5 pages of information (generally with fake data), making sure I'm not opted in to a mailing list, waiting for that confirmation email etc etc. What a pain in the butt when I'm not even sure I'll use the product for more than a few minutes.
I have skipped trying out a product on several occasions because I simply couldn't be bothered going through their signup process.
"I’ll bet that the time-to-signup isn’t an important anxiety factor." It is for me. When I'm looking to try out a product, I hate having to jump through hoops just to get to the download link. Fill in 5 pages of information (generally with fake data), making sure I'm not opted in to a mailing list, waiting for that confirmation email etc etc. What a pain in the butt when I'm not even sure I'll use the product for mor…
What article suggest is to "clutter" your minimalistic sing-up form with useful information on what happens after you sign-up. Hopefully this will excite the user more. So that filling that extra field or confirming that e-mail will not be such a pain.
Basically if you are not exciting the visitor, then even a tiniest time-to-signup won't help.
While there's some quality fodder there, I couldn't get beyond this line: "I’ll bet that the time-to-signup isn’t an important anxiety factor." This isn't the only reason that sign-ups have been pared down; the current trend of thought on the matter is that it also reduces barriers to conversion. Engaging your audience without making them jump through numerous hoops is a great practice, even if that means the occasio…
I don't claim that addressing anxiety is the only reason to say "Signup in 30 seconds." However, data about what converts better isn't a reason. Conversion data gives you correlations, not reasons for the correlations. I prefer to work from a theory of causality when I'm deciding what to put on the page.
I'd actually love to see some studies of how that works in practice, especially given that screen real estate is so valuable around the signup call-to-action. You may be on to something!
Another kind of evil (but effective) approach is to allow the user to do all those post-signup activities (like set up a dashboard or create some content), and then say "now sign up" at the end. They're already invested, so you get better conversion.