Sign Ins

If you filled out an online NCAA bracket, you went through a sign-in process. If you didn’t have an account established with the bracket host, you had to go through steps so you could enter your bracket.

The other day, I was chatting with an entrepreneur and they asserted that if you didn’t make the signup process a maximum of four steps, you would lose customers.  They asserted that if you didn’t do a max four-step process, only 36% of potential customers would complete all the steps necessary to sign up for whatever you are selling.  On the other hand, if you have a four-step process, 86% of people made it through and signed up.

In operations, they call this the “balk”.  Potential customers that come to your website or app, then in the middle of signing up quit.  If you know when customers are quitting the signup process, it should give you really good insight as to why or what you need to change to get them to go all the way.

Of course, signup processes are often fraught with all kinds of dark alleys.  Most do not have pro-consumer default rules, so consumers know what privacy disclosures they agree to when they click, ‘I agree.’” They also have so-called “dark patterns” or user interfaces that can confuse consumers or manipulate them.

Signing up for something can be distracting and confusing as companies try to get more and more data hooks into you.

Mobile presents different challenges than the web of course.  One thing I think companies do not take into account on mobile is the way they organize things or the typeface they use.  For older people with poorer vision, getting through a mobile process can be challenging.

As privacy concerns continue to come to the fore, companies that don’t pay attention to this could be forced by government regulators to change their processes someday.  Big Tech isn’t popular and it will get regulated.  I am not a huge fan of regulation because I don’t think they will do it right, but I think it will happen.

You want your signup process to be elegant, quick, and easy.  It’s a hint at how you will treat your customer once they are in your system.  The companies that try to mine data and grab lots of information upfront are probably going to be really invasive once you start using their service.

Keep that in mind as you re-architect your system, or when you are setting it up in the first place.

The post Sign Ins first appeared on Points and Figures.