How To Avoid Registration & Signup Mistakes
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I was showing a prototype to the CEO of my company and explained to him that the solution will be available on mobile devices as well as an accompanying web portal where users can register for the services. He looked at me and asked if the portal can be completely optional. “I don’t want to register for another service on the web. I don’t like to remember passwords”, he said.
This is a problem for most users: countless user name and passwords. With the mushrooming of web 2.0 applications, every app wants you to begin from scratch – as if you never existed before. It is fine if you use Yahoo or Google etc but most of the interesting new stuff is by startups. The existing and proposed solutions such as OpenID etc have not been able to address the issue adequately. There are all kinds of applications out there (online, desktop and mobile) which will securely (yeah, I know, its hard to know who to trust) keep your ids and passwords and help you in sign up. Even after you do all of that work, you still have to go through the registration process of new web sites and all.
By the way this is a huge problem for enterprises also. Single sign-on, as it is called, is the holy grail for companies which have multiple login systems, causing much anguish and creating silos within the organization.
So what can you do if you are developing a new application which requires registration for a new account? Make it as easy as possible. The registration section of your app has to be really really user friendly and without glitches. You don’t want drop-outs at this stage. See this good post from G. Kawasaki on registration best practices.
12:08 pm
I am not sure, that whether http://www.orgoo.com/Home will be doing something like this or not.
But i think a priduct like Single Sign on — like a portal providing a unified interface taking care of your all password & id’s once provided, and once you login, that’s all. I am not sure wheter there is any product or portal like this, but you post hits on the right target, we have facebook, orkut, linkedin, and remembering password all of them.
In fact many times, i directly go to the forget password option, as in some cases i forget them. As a practice many people have 1 password set for all, but again once hacked or known, their whole world will be lost
Let c.. this is a problem, and hope it will seeks a solution soon
8:14 pm
I like the concept of openID.
@wajahat
I dont think orgoo will provide openID feature as it has its own email and im system. If they doprovide it in future than it would be gr8.
[I am ex-employee of orgoo]
10:18 am
Care to hear another point of view:
I seriously think OpenID or similar ideas are (excuse my language) crap. This is another attempt to collect all the information at a centralized location. Just like Global Passport / IDs.
There has been this struggle going on in “advanced” countries where people are more educated and informed (statistically speaking). The Governments and “Super Power” would love to monitor and eventually control all the activities of their “subjects”.
I don’t disagree with the fact that it is becoming harder everyday to keep track of your online accounts. IDs, passwords etc. I have countless IDs on the net and would like to manage them with ease. So the solution I have is I have only 2-3 IDs and 2-3 passwords, so its one or the other in case I forget.
Or you can make simple spreadsheet or a text file with your links, user ids, password. The way you are compromising is if someone gets hold of your machine physically or virtually but not like your put it out there for the sniffers or opportunists waiting to get all your info.
This is just me speaking out loud and sharing the other-side (whatever you want to call it left or right). Your choice.
We are losing “freedom” one way or the other everyday and becoming slave to the system and governments.
Cheers