In this blog post, I explain why all registration form submission error messages should be stated in plain language as a single step, not in an irritating succession.

Just now, I tried registering for BNET, after being prompted to login or register to read an article. Fine, whatever. I'll register.

The registration form is too long (while writing this, I went back and counted 18 fields. 18, really? All I want to do is read an article.)

After I filled in what I felt was an adequate amount of information, navigated through the myriad of opt in and opt out (yes, both) newsletter tickboxes, I clicked the nicely obvious 'Continue' button. That's where the trouble really started.

First, I was alerted that I hadn't filled in my city. Oops, my bad. I added it, and clicked 'Continue'.

Hold up, now I was being told I hadn't filled in my company name. I'm self-employed and haven't thought of a catchy business name yet. So I typed 'self-employed''. And then clicked 'Continue'.

Halt! Another error message:

.

I think it's saying my email address already exists in their registered user database. How about using Plain English?

So, now it turns out my e-mail address is already registered. Why in the Flipping H*ll didn't they say that to start with? In fact, couldn't we have dealt with all of the missing form information in one step? This technology is available, people!

Am I already registered? Do I go through the pain of recovering my login and password? At this point, I've already lost nearly 10 minutes, and then I started blogging about it, which means even more time out of my precious day.

The above scenario is a perfect example of the loss of goodwill as described in Steve Krug's book Don't Make Me Think!

Don't do this to your customers. Ensure your registration forms display all error messages in one step and are written to help your user. And then get someone to QA the form thoroughly.