Web Sign Up Forms Must Die

I love it!

An introspective article over at A List Apart by Luke Wroblewski delves into the reasons why...

we can do better. In fact, I believe we can get people engaged with digital services in a way that tells them how such services work and why they should care enough to use them. I also believe we can do this without explicitly making them fill out a sign-up form as a first step.

The blog is an excerpt from his forthcoming book, Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks (Rosenfeld Media, 2008), and you can read it here!

The article is super informative, and expounds upon the practice of gradual engagement, whereby a user is drawn into the website due to useful or practical information that pertains to their specific needs. Avoid gradual engagement solutions that simply distribute the various input fields in a sign-up form across multiple pages. It's a good possibility that this will reduce efficiency and not delight anyone.