Sign Up Sucks: Here’s How to Make the Process Better
Does this look familiar?
Of course it does. It’s quite literally the same experience you have for every (digital) product or service you’ve ever signed up for.
Pushing to the side the click wrap agreement (that absolutely should not be valid or enforceable, let alone an accepted standard) for now, let’s focus on something more important. To do this, let me describe a simple scenario.
- You walk into a clothing store
- You start ‘browsing’
- You’re asked if you’d like help or if you’re happy to keep browsing
- Typically you answer with the former
- You keep browsing
- Eventually you find an item (or many) that you like
- You try them on
Yes, point 7 was the punchline. You don’t just buy, you try.
You do this for assurance. You want to enhance your confidence in the purchase.
Many digital products and services will do something similar. They’ll give you a 14 day free trial or whatever. But they still force you to sign up. You’re not able to browse, try and maybe even trial (so you can determine either literal or figurative ‘fit’) before you sign your life away.
I’m here to argue this doesn’t have to be the case. There are better options and ‘we’ (collective) should pursue them.
This video begins to explore how we, as designers, might like to think about this challenge and opportunity.
Once you’ve watched it, engage in the discussion. What do you think about what I am proposing? What have I missed? What have you already experimented with? What’s holding you back from giving this a crack?
I’m here to share and learn.
