Ten Tips For User Friendly Online Registration Forms

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Feb 24, 2009, 10:36:04 AM2/24/09

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Ten Tips For User Friendly Online Registration Forms

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Have you ever registered or attempted to register for an event
and spent half an hour trying to figure out what you needed to
do? Or have you used an online registration form that lost your
data or was so complicated that it seemed like more work than
faxing the form?

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Distribution Date and Time: 2009-02-24 10:36:00

Written By: Jim Romanik
Copyright: 2009
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Ten Tips For User Friendly Online Registration Forms
Copyright (c) 2009 Jim Romanik
ePly Services Inc.
http://www.eply.com/

When used properly, online registration is an extremely powerful
tool that makes registration easy for event participants. If used
improperly, event participants can be left extremely frustrated
and in some cases reluctant to attend the event.

We have put together a list of ten design tips to help you create
user friendly registration forms and give your event participants
a positive registration experience.

1. Make the registration form easy to access

Make the link to the online registration form very obvious. Event
participants may not be familiar with your website and will
become frustrated if they have to hunt for the registration form.
If you are sending a URL (web address) in printed material make
the address as simple as possible so participants aren't
entering a long string of characters. Also, only put a
registration form in a password protected part of your website
when absolutely necessary. People often forget their passwords,
which will cause more frustration and possibly generate calls and
emails to the event planner.

2. Make your form familiar and secure

Event participants need to be reassured that their data is
secure. A good way to do this is to brand the online form to
match your website. This way, the transition to the online from
is seamless and event participants will remain comfortable with
the process. Also, make sure that appropriate security icons such
as the lock symbol in your browser appear when collecting credit
card numbers.

3. Make the registration form clear and easy to use

A well laid out and visually appealing registration form
encourages event participants to register. On the form, keep text
to a minimum and make it clear what you want participants to do.
Use logic to guide participants through the form and give
warnings if something is wrong.

4. Have appropriate payment options

If you have a fee associated with your event, make sure the
payment methods you offer are appropriate for the people
registering. For example, large companies may require an invoice
before a check can be issued and some groups of people may not
have credit cards.

5. Make sure it works

There is nothing worse than entering all of your registration
data and then getting an error when you click submit and losing
the data. Before going live, be sure to test your form several
times selecting all of the different options to be sure
everything will work for the event participants.

6. Display your privacy policy

Many people are concerned about who will have access to their
information and how it will be used. Make sure you have a privacy
statement available on the online form to reassure participants
that you are protecting their information.

7. Anticipate questions participants may have

Don't overload the form with information (tip 3), but have
information on the form that you think may be useful when
registering such as prices, dates or special instructions. It's
inconvenient for participants to have to click back to search for
the information on your website and in some cases clicking
"back" will delete the data in a partially complete form.

8. Only request necessary data

The less information people have to provide the more comfortable
they will be with the process and the quicker they will be able
to complete the form. If you are asking for personal information
such as birthdate it helps to add a note saying why you are
requesting the information.

9. Don't over use mandatory fields

Mandatory fields help to get fully complete registration forms,
but too many mandatory fields can frustrate an event participant.
This is especially true if there is information that is not
readily known such as the fax number for someone else in their
group.

10. Avoid making participants sign up with another company before
they can register for your event

Some online registration companies require that people
registering for your events first sign up as a member with them.
A system like this has its place, but many event participants
will be turned off providing information to a third party.

A related article "Online Registration: Getting people to use
it" is available on our website and offers some suggestions
about how to get people to the online from in the first place.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or
comments about this article.

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Jim Romanik - founder of ePly Online Event Registration
(http://www.eply.com)

We are online registration experts and treat your reputation
as our own to build registration forms that help your events
succeed and make people wonder how you did it.

Download our Free Guide - "What Every Event Planner
Should Know About Online Event Registration" at:
http://www.eply.com/lp/articles.html

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