Ryan Singer: 10 Registration Form Design Tips

Ryan Singer, designer of the notorious 37 Signals at the Future of Web Design conference, gave 10 tips on designing registration forms. I must say that these tips are quite natural and so obvious that the question arises - “why bother to talk at all? the same is clear! ” But - as soon as you start to register in some new startup, you realize that this evidence is not visible to everyone.

1. Ask simple questions and do not overload the form with text;
2. Check the availability of a nick as you type it;
3. If there is information that you may need about the user - find out the application itself, and not during registration;
4. Use user-friendly language;
5. Use “forgiving” input: as free as possible for the data;
6. Do not make users guess what they want from them when entering this or that information: give a couple of examples for the entered information;
7. Remind the user why he has registered, give him confidence in his actions;
8. Do not shock the user with error messages and warnings, make them accurate
9. Registration is a process, not just a form. A process with its beginning and ending, and the end of this process develops into the beginning of using your product;
10. Do not overload the welcome letter with tips, better give hints in the application itself, and in those places where they are needed: make life easier for the user immediately after registration.

Full performance by Ryan Singer on Youtube
On the topic you can read:

• Jennifer Tidwell Designing User Interfaces . Design patterns are very well described.
• Alan Cooper "About Face 1.0", "About face 2.0", "About face 3.0" - a classic from the pioneer of design
• Luke Wroblewski - a series of articles on his website , one of which is about form design