Please Stop Verifying My Email Address
There something in common among the following email addresses:
jack@gmail.com — jack@googlemail.com — jack+001@gmail.com — jack+002@gmail.com — jack+001@googlemail.com — jack+002@googlemail.com
Those six unique email addresses all send a message to the same place. Place anything after ‘+’ in the name and those mails too will all go to the same inbox.
Website sign up forms generally care about these three things with regard to the email address:
1. It looks like an email address
2. Is not already being used with an existing account
3. Mail can be sent there
One standard free gmail address can therefore often be used to register a person an unlimited number of times. Or, if you have done your earnest to prevent it then setting up unlimited gmail addresses is still their option. There are many free email alternatives also, each of those allow users unlimited addresses too.
A user has unlimited unique email addresses available to them at all times to which they can receive email.
Furthermore if they spend ten dollars, the default email setting on new web domains will forward <anything>@<their domain> to them. There isn’t any way to prevent people from having all of the email addresses that they want.
So why make them verify?
Users Do Not Want to Verify
The act of registering on anything generally means that a user will be required to verify their email address. It will require that they access one of their email accounts and wait for a confirmation link to be sent and arrive.
This breaks interaction with the service they are trying to use. Delivering a full page error that tells them “You must verify your email address to continue” while they are trying to do something for the very first time is jarring and unpleasant.
The situation is compounded if a user likes trying out new services, they find themselves verifying over and over.
Anyone being punished in this way would start to feel they should avoid filling in forms on any new website, until they’ve spent some time there first.
Their interest might wane while asking themselves “Do I really want an account?” A verification step is foreshadowed now by the imagining of account creation.
Some Users Don’t Want Mail
In the case that a user doesn’t want to receive email from you there are many ways to prevent it.
Unsubscribing interrupts their email experience and sends them back to your website, where there is usually a message telling them they have unsubscribed. This is annoying. In addition internet scammers very often use the ‘unsubscribe’ link to literally do the opposite and subscribe them to more mail.
The less potentially problematic solution for them is to instead flag your email as spam. This is quick, easy and increasingly close to being common practice in a modern digital mail system.
Alternatively and almost as bad, they may filter you. With one click your message goes into the trash, some email clients provide the option to delete mail from the source. This feature means that with a second click that user can create a filter that disables correspondance with you.
Far better than sending users email they might not want, don’t send anything.
Some Users Don’t Want to Give You Their Email Address
If a user has been on the internet for a while they probably have an email address they use just for registering on websites. It’s an old account they used a long time ago but it became overflowing with junk mail. Now they only use it to receive confirmation emails and never visit it for anything else.
If a user doesn’t want to give you their real email address, why encourage them to trick you?
Forms with Email Fields Are a Steel Barrier
Seeing an email address field is a trigger in the minds of users worldwide, it has them trained to stop and consider.
Imagine, or look at your beautiful signup form that hits all of the right notes.
It seamlessly guides your user from one field to the next, like a concerto orchestra. It is so good that the user doesn’t even think about the fact they are creating a new account on your incredible website. Until they see that email address field.
It is a line in the sand and it forces the unpleasant question: “Do I really want to keep going?”
Email Addresses Are Not Immutable
A user will not have one email address forever. People change their email address and forget their old email address or password all the time.
They likely have many email addresses which are used for different purposes. Email clients which manage multiple addresses are commonplace and widely utilised. Addresses are easily changed, thrown away or created new.
Old accounts or just accounts used to register on a few websites,are at increased risk it will stop being used. The email address a user gives you if you twist their arm is not the one they care about and want to hold on to.
You Do It Largely out of Habit
You know it frustrates your users. You would rather they were happily enjoying the product, not being forced to participate in any unnecessary verification stage.
As an alternative to your regular sign up form allow users to enter an invalid email address if they want to, or none.
Let them put anything in for example the number “4".
Allow them to mistype by accident, they can fix it later. Or, at the very least add a tiny “No thanks” option and have it disable the input when clicked.
Don’t try to prevent users from creating multiple accounts. Provide enough benefit and value in one that there isn’t any reason to create more. If it came down to it they could just use a different email address to sign up twice anyway.
Thank users that provide you a real email address it means they want you to keep them up to date. Deliver value in the emails you send, give users a reason to want to receive them.
Email should once again be used as a communication medium, not the notification bus-terminal it has become.
