Make One Up

I'm doing the 'Cholesterol Assessment' at RealAge.com, and in the process it asks for an email address. Next it asks for a password, but instead of telling me that if I don't have one yet I have to click another link and go register, it says: "If you don't have one, make one up".

What an excellent way to treat visitors. Simple. Logical. Yet effective. RealAge treats registered and unregistered people the same way, and puts the burden on their programmers instead of me. Very nice.

I don't know about you, but I always cringe when I get interrupted in some process to go register. I probably leave 50% of the time. I bet RealAge has abandonment rates that are just a fraction of most 'register first' online surveys.

BTW: I'm doing this as part of some client research, although I'm sure doing it is a good idea anyway.

Posted by Craig Danuloff at May 2, 2004 4:05 PM