Here are common design mistakes we often see as we watch users try to create accounts and sign into the site according to Jared M. Spool
#1: Sign-in In The First Place
Fortunately, most sites don’t take this approach. On most sites, you can do many things without identifying yourself. And, that’s the way customers like it. They hate having to create an account to do something simple, such as download a white paper or pay for a product they’ve chosen.
#2: Requiring Sign-in Too Soon
Clicking on “My Account” like in AMAZON, users sees the entire list of account support options before they identify themselves. In some cases, such as one-click shopping, they never have the user sign-in. The cookie on the machine is good enough.
#3 Not Stating the Benefits to Registering
Creating an account puts a burden on the user. What do they get in return for this added burden? At Yahoo, they say right on the sign-in page: Stay in touch with free Mail and Messenger. Tune in to the latest in movies, cricket, finance etc.
Mistake #4: Hiding the Sign-In Button
Normally the default pages are well designed to sell potential new customers on the site. They design a very visible registration button. But Unfortunately they ignores the member login link and it is much harder to see.
#5: Not Making “Create New Account” or “Forgot Your Password” a Button or Link
User expect these links under Sign-in box, but in some websites they appear in a pull down menu. Several users didn’t realize they were there and searched elsewhere on the site, to little avail.
#6: Not Providing Sign-in Opportunities at Key Locations
We’ve observed many users will prefer to log in at the last possible moment. Maybe it’s because because they’re immersed in their tasks.
#7: Asking for Too Much Information When Registering
Users typically want to answer as few questions as possible. Good to ask for a user name and password and email for password retrieve. Later ask for any profile or personalization information, when the need arises.
#8: Not Telling Users how you’ll Use Their Information
“Why do they need to know my home phone number?” the user asked when typing. Airlines sites provide answer like: “Please provide a phone number where you can be reached in the event of a change to your flight reservation.”
#9: Not Telling Users the Requirements for Username and Password Up Front
when selecting a User ID, users must told that it “must contain at least one letter and may contain numbers.” Same for password selection too.
When creating a new Google Mail account, Google provides a “Check Availability” button, which will inform users about the minimum length requirement (6 characters).
#10: Using Challenge Questions They Won’t Remember In A Year
For some user their bank account locked out because they couldn’t remember the answers to the challenge questions. It had been almost two years since they first entered the information.One of the questions, “What street did you grow up on?” confused them, since they had moved frequently.
#11: Not Returning Users to Their Desired Objective
On AllRecipes, the site has a great feature where you can save a discovered recipe to make it easy to retrieve later. Of course, you need an account first. The site asks four screens worth of questions, few related to saving recipes. When done, the user is dumped on the home page and forced to find the recipe they originally wished to save.
#12: Not Explaining If It’s The Username or Password They Got Wrong
For many sites , The error message was a simple, “Invalid Login. Please Try Again.” Was the password wrong or did they register with a different email address?
At Staples, a wrong username generates the message, “We’re sorry, but we cannot find an account for this username and/or password.” Whereas, a wrong password generates, “The username and password combination does not match our records.” A clue, just this subtle, can help a user sign in a little faster.
At American Express, the site tells you the password is invalid, even when the User ID is incorrect. To add insult to injury, they have two separate recovery procedures: one for the wrong User ID and one for the wrong password. The best sites have a single, simple recovery process regardless of the user’s error.
#13: Not Putting A Register Link When The Sign-In Is An Error
Many users have registered on so many sites, they sometimes can’t remember which sites already have their account information. As a strategy, many users will try the most likely username and password combination first, just in case they’ve already created an account. If this strategy fails, they hope to create a new account right after.
#14: Not Giving the User A Non-email Solution To Recover Their Password
Telling the user you’ll send their password in email works great, assuming they know the email address you’re using. Unfortunately, many users change their emails over time. (It’s said that one-third of all email addresses go dormant each year.) Or, they may be someplace where it’s inconvenient to check their email, such as home when they’ve used their work email.
15: Requiring More Than One Element When Recovering Password
If users forget their username or password, they’ll need both their email address *and* their billing phone number. Requiring one or the other would be great, but requiring both makes it exponentially more difficult to recover the password and likely they’ll lose the sale or user.
