Comments on: Death to email address re-entry

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[...] Death to email address re-entry | James Mansfield – form email forms design ux ia [...]

By: Quora

Quora — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 07:44:38 +0000

Does adding a ‘confirm email address’ affect conversion on sign-up pages?…

Back in 2008 Smashing Magazine did a survey on registration forms, and they found that only 18% of responding companies used email address re-entry (see http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/07/08/web-form-design-patterns-sign-up-forms-part-2/). I would…

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 02:11:52 +0000

Despite the tiny amount of extra work it creates, double entry is my preferred method of minimising mistypes because it’s simple and instant.

As for why it tends to be applied to email addresses only: it’s because many users will be far more familiar with their mailing addresses than their email addresses. Not every form user is tech-savvy.

Asking for a second entry doesn’t implicitly “…assume I’ve gotten it wrong the first time”, it only assumes the *possibility* that I’ve gotten it wrong the first time.

By: Al

Al — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 07:47:00 +0000

I have the added problem on my laptop where I can’t re enter my email address the second time. This is so annoying, especially as then I can’t proceed any further with any bookings etc. I have turned off my internet security program but with no success. I thought the Qantas website might have been the problem but that works ok on another computer with no security program installed.?????

By: Grant

Grant — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 02:31:19 +0000

Hi James – I agree it would be awesome to avoid double-entry, and I’m interested in Russell’s experiments (something to try out on my next project).

Just wanted to mention that your estimate of “1% reduced to 0.5%” is actually much lower than a lot of real-life cases – my memory of a large NGO was that it was 5%+ bad email addresses that were reduced to <1% after adding the confirmation field. For high traffic sites this is a significant impact.

I agree that from a user perspective this shouldn't be a big deal, but it does generate a lot of waste in terms of "back office" handling for larger organisations when data is entered incorrectly. So the cost to the business is often the reason for introducing such additional checks.

Regards, Grant

By: Yoni

Yoni — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 19:26:44 +0000

If any of you have *specific* alternatives you’d like to see prototyped, I’d be happy to throw ‘em up there (http://yoni.me/erp)

Just sayin’.

~ yoni

By: george

george — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 19:25:54 +0000

Even worse is the password field being blanked out on a signup form. why can’t i see the password i’m typing in – forms assuming there is someone always peeking over my shoulder while i do this.

By: Rich

Rich — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 17:04:34 +0000

I find this option really annoying myself, but I do think it is helpful.

It has told me on more than several occasions I entered different Email address. To be fair it is usually the second one or because I am so irritated I mess up.

I have had several users make this mistake before using this. They were mad because they did not receive messages or notifications.

By: Rory Sexton

Rory Sexton — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 12:29:23 +0000

Great topic. I agree, it seems madness to request re-entry, but unfortunately it is very necessary. We have recently disabled the ability to copy and paste the email address into the 2nd field on our own website http://www.economycarhire.com because far too many people miss-spell their email address and this causes a lot of additional work for our back office. BTW we do actually request the email address when they first start to make a booking, which is similar to the amazon sign-in process as this helps to identify repeat customers (which solves another common problem), then the customer re-enters their email address later in the process, very similar to what you advise in your last paragraph.

By: Roger K.

Roger K. — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 16:58:16 +0000

Yeah, but I’ve seen SO many emails entered as http://www.mywebsite.com or fredbob.mywebsite.com etc.

Yes, the two examples above are taken care of with field validation, but I also do a lot of work with a particular industry that is new to technology and computers, so their frequency of errors is extremely high.

Double entry makes them stop, think a bit, turn their brain on, and then proceed.