I have recently signed up with this wonderful social media website Sphinn.com which aggregates news and articles on search engine marketing and social media landscape. The site has got excellent content and an active community.

However, while signing up, I got confused (for a while though) on the signup page.

The point of confusion is the disabled "Create user" button at the bottom.

The concept is that the user need to verify the availability of username (compulsory) and validity of email before the "Create user" buttom becomes active. The problem with this approach is that:

• By doing this, the webmaster has put the onus of verifying the username and validity of email on the user and is stopping him from moving ahead in the signup process.
• Above all, it is not in line with the general user experience in most signup forms, thereby resulting in a learning curve for its users.
• People may not like to learn a "new way of doing thing" for something as simple and one-time activity as signup with a service.

The user initiated verification can be an additional benefit and can be provided as a feature to improve user experience, but not at the cost of disabling the "Create user" button and verifying it at the site of form submission.

It seems sphinn.com is based on a popular script called pligg.com. If the signup form comes from that popular open-source social media script, this usability flaw needs to be fixed in more than one website

Abhishek

I came across a Web2.0 website called ProjectStat.us (Trying to express that it has something to do with project status - a nice cool trick). I liked the overall concept and was curious to find out how it works. So I decided to sign up.

I filled up the Signup form and clicked on "Create Account" with great expectations and this is what I got!

So, I can only provide a five digit zip code and a two digit state code. I do not have the right to submit my country! The product / service seems to be targetting the global audience. Then why considering only US data set?

I again pressed "Create Account" with much anticipation..
And I got..

Now it says that the login name that I chose is already in use. It is poor form validation which does not show unavailability of login name in the first check and when you correct the remaining information, it talks about unavailability of login name.

I took another chance and typed in my full name abhishekrungta as the desired login name.
And I got this…

Now it says that my Login name is too long. phew..

BTW, I didnt give up. I tried one last time with a different Login name which is short and "should have been available". I got an error screen showing "

I do not understand the rational behind such checks when they are not going to make a big difference in the application. They just harass a user and causes confusion. This is truly a usability nightmare and deserves a position in this column.

In my opinion a form should be short and simple, with minimum validation (validate only those data which is absolutely important) and a flexible data structure to accomodate cultural and geographical diversity.