Improved Platform Sign Up Flow
Iterative UX design of ecommerce sign up flow
Challenge
Standard Beagle’s development client, Quality Driven Software, was experiencing a large percentage of mistaken employee sign-ups.
The sign-ups were costing the company because removing the employees from the database required time from the development team.
The sign-ups also were throwing off the metrics. The sign up flow abandonment was high and conversions were extremely low.
Scope
The client requested that the scope of this project be limited to the sign up flow. Previously, they had not undergone any UX research or design methods on the product.
Constraints
We were asked to complete the analysis and recommendations within a week because the UX would be taking away from development resources.
Implementation
The results of this project were intended to be implemented within one-two months of the design. The project was shelved due to a shift in priorities.
Our Goal
We proposed a UX analysis of the flow with the intention of proposing an iterated flow to discourage the employee signups and encourage more companies to complete the sign up process.
To do this, we needed to achieve these goals:
- Review the existing flow and identify the areas causing the most confusion
- Review similar flows for inspiration
- propose an iterated flow and new interface components as needed.
Our Solution
The flow needed to be addressed because it was not leading employees to the right place to log into the platform.
Results
We presented and handed off the iterated flow in May 2021.
Due to other priorities, development of the new flow was shelved until the priorities were completed and budget was available.
Our Process
Understand
While our development team was familiar with the product, our design team had the advantage of never having used the product. This allowed the designers to bring a fresh perspective to the process.
UX Analysis
Currently, there is only one sign up flow: the flow for new companies. The sign-up for the QDS application is intended for new companies Each company signs up their own employees and provides them with access.
However, not all companies provide the link, and employees end up on the app and sign up through the flow to use the platform as their employer intends.
The employees that go down this flow often abandon at the payment screen when they realize that this is the wrong flow.
Problem: Employees believe they need to sign up for this flow, when they actually need to be added to a company account via an administrator. Said administrator needs to add each employee individually, then share credentials with said employee.
Explore
UX Inspiration
After analyzing the flow and identifying key areas to focus on, we turned to other successful sign-up flows for inspiration.
One of these flows was in Netflix. We noticed key differences between the QDS flow and Netflix’s sign up. Among them was that the pricing tiers information appears much earlier in the Netflix sign up process, discouraging users who do not want to pat from entering their information.
Here’s what it looks like:
Design
UX Design
Our client was most interested in solutions that would quickly solve the issue.
We considered one potential solution of adding an employee sign-up flow. The employee could choose from a dropdown list or search for their current company, then create their own user name and password. This would would also take dependence off the company administrator to create the employee account.
The development team let us know this would not be a fast solution to the issue, so we turned our attention elsewhere.
Next, we considered adjusting the sign up form screen so that it would alert employees to request a log in if their company already has an account.
This solution would be much faster. We proposed adding a small employee account box under the video on the existing page. This update would take far less time to implement and could be tested to see how effective it would be.
Conclusion
Additional Suggestions
We also recommended to the client to make small adjustments in the body copy to improve the experience for companies signing up. It would streamline the set up and get companies off to a good start.
Rating Scale
We recommended the star rating scale default to 1-5 instead of 1-4, since that’s what most users preferred.
The client was spending additional time helping companies change their rating scale, and this adjustment would reduce time and effort for the client.
UX Writing
As a companion update, we recommended an update to the copy so that the scale would be more clear. Our updated copy was:
“Most people like to use a 1- 5 rating scale where the middle score, 3, is neutral/lukewarm, while 1 & 2 are some degree of dissatisfaction and 4 & 5 are some degree of satisfaction. This is the most common scale and is the recommended because most people are familiar with this scale. Some people chose a 1 – 4 rating scale where options 1 & 2 are some degree of dissatisfaction and 3 & 4 are some degree of satisfaction. Please consider you choice carefully because changing this setting later will mess up existing surveys scores since they will be on a different scale.”
