In my ongoing series about how Joshua Porter’s great Designing for the Social Web helped us develop the Qwidget, I now turn my thoughts towards chapter 4 “Design for Sign Up” in a series of posts that will cover a few aspects of his thinking on this matter.  At the end, I will describe how the Qwidget sign up process was influenced by  this very important chapter.

When creating a social web product or service, it can be dangerously easy to imagine throngs of new users beating down your door to use your fantastically innovative, convenient, feature-filled, awesome new tool.  But as Josh points out, when they first encounter your social software, most potential new users are skeptical and perhaps confused by what you’re offering.

He suggests that you approach designing the sign up process in the same way a journalist would approach writing a news story: by focusing on who, what, where, when, why and how.

What is it?

This is the first question that you must answer for any potential new user.  The key here is to explain very clearly what your product/service does without being confusing.  A user must immediately grasp what you do and consequently which of his/her problems you can solve.  Porter gives a great example of a website that aces this task and another that doesn’t.

Example 1: If you looked at the top of Blinksale’s site for only two seconds, you’d still know what they do.

Example 2: Bill My Clients has a clear name but does the design immediately convey what they do? As your eye travels across the page, you’ll probably see the login box before you see anything about what they do.  All that communicates to me as a new user is that this page is not really meant for me.

Note: Porter’s book has an image of a previous version of the Billmyclients.com homepage.  However, the new version pictured above is as unclear as the one in the book.