If the user doesn’t make it through registration successfully, they unfortunately will not use the valuable content behind the gate. A registration form must carefully address factors of friction, anxiety, motivation, usability and transparency.

Registration form competitive analysis data (Excel)

Insights from competitive analysis data:

• Number of fields ranged from 4-13
  • Microsoft and Google have the highest number of fields in their registration forms
  • Twitter has the least number of fields in their registration form
• The submit button is used as agreement to the terms and conditions on almost all of the reviewed sites (except Google)
• Almost all of the reviewed sites (except Facebook & Twitter) refer to authentication as sign in
  • Facebook and Twitter refer to authentication as Log in
• Only Facebook, Google & Microsoft provide value propositions on their registration form pages
  • Facebook’s value proposition airs the most on the side of brevity
  • Microsoft provides a longer value proposition but not as impactful
  • Google provides the most detailed value proposition with visualizations and supporting content
• Vertical arrangement of fields is the most common layout
  • Many sites combine vertical with horizontal when contextually relevant
• Many sites transitioned from field labels beside inputs in 2013 to field labels above inputs or ghosted inside in 2015
• Displaying the active field in 2013 was most commonly achieved by showing the cursor, in 2015 many more sites began displaying a distinct outline around the active field
• First name and last name are requested as separate fields on most of the sites reviewed (except Amazon & Twitter)
• Many sites have begun shifting towards a single password field in 2015 (Facebook, Ebay, Twitter, Yahoo)