It’s pretty much a standard practice online to require users to provide some information about themselves prior to gaining access to “free” content. The price of this free content is clearly your personal info. If your site runs third party ads, the business rationale is generally to learn more about your users so you can serve them more targeted ads for which you can charge advertisers a premium. For other sites like enterprise sites, the motivation is for lead generation so you can seek your sales guys on them once they have registered. The problem with these forms is that users loathe them; they just want the info - not straddled with a catch to get the information. Depending on the site, the form may be longer than others’ and there may be more required info than others’.

So, do most people just opt not to complete these forms? Are there many lost opportunities for business for these sites? Probably. Because registration forms are not standardized and because the usability of such forms may vary from site to site, many users may choose to forego the promised content altogether. I, myself, have signed up if I deem the information valuable enough; however, there are many users who wouldn’t bother. And, don’t state that it will take 30 seconds when in fact it takes 5 minutes.

This is a cost-benefit analysis that each site needs to determine for itself based on its users, the actual time it takes to register, and the value of the reward for registering.

Sites which offer the same content as elsewhere or for which similar content can be found from other sources online like news sites, should not be forcing users to register to read the news. They simply lose readership and annoy users. Sites like NYTimes and WSJ which require users to not only register but in the case of WSJ, complete a four page form and pay for the content, when you can get the same thing on CNN.com for instance, are missing the boat here. And then of course, there is the degree of personal information some sites may request. NYTimes asks what is your annual household income and guess what - it’s a required field; although, you can choose not to say. I wonder how many people really do say! The other usability issue that can arise is once a user is signed in, how quickly does the system time out forcing users to re-signin. This can get tiresome. If users do signup, however, then they have basically opted-in or self-selected, thereby, making them more likely to remain a loyal user. It is the ones who choose not to register that sites need to figure out where they might have failed in converting them, considering, they got them as far as the registration form.

So, in summary if you are considering adding a registration form:
-Figure out your cost-benefit analysis
-Keep forms short
-Refrain from too many required fields
-Don’t ask for too personal info
-Don’t mislead users on the form completion time
-Make your forms usable
-Be mindful of short system timeouts
-No more hurdles. Once the user has completed the form, give them what they are looking for!