Yesterday, Luke Wroblewski – Chief design architect at Yahoo! – wrote a blog post singing the praises of audiosharing site Huffduffer. But it wasn’t Huffduffer’s service that got Luke W animated, so much as their sign-up page.
While most sites use a standard form with text-boxes and radio buttons for new sign-ups, Huffduffer presents its questions as a ‘Mad Lib’ style statement…
“I would like to use Huffduffer. I want my username to be _____________ and I want my password to be _____________. My email address is _________. By the way, my name is ______________ and my website is ___________.”
…which is kinda neat.
But Luke, being a ‘chief design architect’ (one of the world’s more tautological job titles), wanted to find out more. Specifically, he wanted to know if this style of form actually encourages more people to sign up than the usual Name: ___________ / Email address: __________ format. So he persuaded Ron Kurti at Vast.com to do some A/B testing and, whaddya know?, it turns out the conversational fill-in-the-blanks form increased conversion by 25-40%.
Given those impressive numbers it’s a cast iron certainty that in the next few months dozens of sites, starting probably with Yahoo!, will consider upgrading their sign-up pages to this new, friendlier format. The trick, of course, will be to get the wording just right – to customize each sign-up page for the site’s particular audience.
…which has given me an idea for a ‘fun’ weekend contest! Hurrah!
Your challenge is this: suggest some Mad Lib-style wording for the sign up page of your favourite web 2.0 site. The funnier the better. Post your entry in the comments and his time next week I’ll pick the funniest (say) three and award some excellent prizes.
Prizes that will include (but are not limited to): fame, recognition of your brilliance and whatever crap I can find in my hotel room – a signed copy of my eBay-auction-winning book, a TechCrunch tshirt and maybe one of those little bottles of shampoo you get.
Here are some examples off the top of my head to inspire you. Yours should be better…
Twitter:
“I do everything Oprah tells me to do so I’d like to use Twitter for three days. I’d like my username to be __________ and my password to be ‘password123′, or the name of my dog which is ______________. Please autofollow me to Oprah, Ellen Degeneres and Taylor Swift.”
Google:
“My name is ___________ and I would like to sign up to use Gmail/Google Buzz. The name of the person I am secretly having an affair with is ___________ and my social security number is _______________. Please display this information on my public profile.”
YouTube:
“LOL!!!! My n@me is ____________ & I wanna join yutube becos this video sukkkssss!! I think _____________ is GAAY!!! LOLLZ”
Livejournal:
“My name is ______________ and joining Livejournal is my only hope of getting anyone to read my poetry. My birthstone is ____________ and my current mood is _____________ and lonely. No one understands me. I hate my life.”
MySpace:
“My name is ____________ and due to some kind of administrative error I would like to join MySpace.”
Go, submit!
@Google best!!!
Microsoft
I ______ like to join hotmail to get my account hacked .
@Paul..I did n’t see the prizes for it otherwise I would have never written that!!!
I —– like to join for .NET community as I need to know how to make slow unresponsive websites that can be easily hacked by anybody..so that I can bill more hours for my client..
I —- like to join to IE 6 community as I still believe IE6 is one of the most used browsers in the world..which can’t be easily hacked…
Yelp
I could just search this site and get what I need, but my opinion is wayyy too important to go unwritten. The other people in my book club know me as _______ and my password is “lattelover”. I have ____ cats and my favorite Sex in the City character is ______.
Facebook.
Hello my name is _______ a.k.a. ________ from _____, student at _____ and employee at ________ and I want to join Facebook to ____________ with ________ at ________. Please auto-install Farmville and post ___ notifications in my Wall.
Flickr.
I feel dark inside, like this photo of a ______ with an emphasis on the shadow(s). This is the only reason I would conceivably have a Yahoo ID, and it is __________. Please make my password an anagram of Ansel Adams or ________.
Windows:
I’m ______ and I like to see blue screens and I have a fetish for viruses. My password would be ______ which I know is difficult to remember so you can ask me for my first girlfriend’s name which is _____.
If Apple fan boys or Linux enthusiasts come across my profile I want them to use the word ________ to abuse me, anything else and I’ll sue them!
Hello! My name is ____ and I’d like to join LinkedIn. My email address is ____, my website is ____, I have an RSS feed at ____ and I am on twitter as @____. I’m interested in ____, ____, ____ and expertise requests.
I am currently employed as ____ at ____ and as ____ at ____. Before that I was employed as a ____ at ____ and prior to that I did ____ for ____.
I went to school at ____ where I received a ____ in ____ and also at ____ where I received a ____.
Because I worked with ____, ____, ____ and ____ at various points in my life, I’d like to be connected to them – even though I hardly speak with them anymore. Oh, and connect me with ____, too, as they’re my current boss and I don’t want to look unprofessional.
In the last short while I’ve worked with ____ and ____, so please send them a message telling them I’ve signed up and ask them to give me recommendations for the ____ I did for them. I’d like give my own to ____ for ____.
I want to join a group devoted to ____ – because that’s what I currently do, and ____ because that’s what everyone thinks I should be doing. Have me join a ____ group too, because everyone else is doing it.
I think that’s everything about me. Please let me know when you’ve found me a new career.
Thanks.
Friendster.
Hi! I’m ____________ and I’m alone and lonely, so I’d like to join a Social Network that’s also alone and lonely. My password is ‘facebook’ and I’d like a black and pink profile with lots of malware in it.
Thanks!
foursquare.
“my name is_________ but i want my username to be stalker, i would like to join foursquare so i can have an excuse to use my fone at a restaurant when i have nothing to say to my date “
DeviantArt
My name is __________. I feel the dark powers compel me to join this site, to post my angstily-drawn pictures of half-naked ________s and faeries, all of which are elaborate metaphors for the constant state of _________ in which I perpetually, endlessly, forever find myself. I don’t expect you to understand; no one understands. Please make my password “unicorns”.
CraigsList
Hi, my fake name is ________ and my age is ______ (when displayed in public profile be sure to subtract _______ years). Please display ads that only contain pictures of women between ______ and ______ (and preferably have gps coordinates in the exif data).
TechCrunch
Hi, my name is _________ and I can be emailed at __________. My website, in case I’m not obnoxious enough here, is ______________. You can see me be a douche in REAL TIME by going to twitter.com/________.
I haven’t read your article, by tl;dr is too honest for me and not obnoxious enough. Therefore, the following is my paragraph on why TC is a tabloid that has no journalistic integrity, how MG Siegler/Mike Arrington/Paul Carr is a hack with no talent, and why 9/11 was secretly the fault of puppies. With several links to my trite and boring website thrown in for good measure:
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I ____ (do/do not) want to be spammed every time some other cretin bitches about the blog they read on this post.
Sorry, *but tl;dr.
palm pre totally screwed up my comments. Can you delete this one?
My name is __________ and my e-mail address is ___________, but I would prefer if you tweeted me @___________ since I am a total Twitter fanboi (all of the posts from my site ___________ auto-tweet there).
I am filling out this form because I have been a long time TechCrunch reader, but still haven’t figured out that “NSFW” is the name of your column, and has nothing to do with the content of the article. Please post the following inane comment ___________, so that other readers may reply back with their righteous indignation.
some of the above are pretty good and am sure a better design would have custom messages. I am surprised that we needed some A/B testing to figure out that the conversational fill-in-the-blanks form increased conversion. It seems so obvious and everyone knows how unfriendly forms are.
I wonder if the conversion rates will hold once everyone starts doing it, though. It might be novel enough to get mentioned on TC now, but it could get annoying having to read through paragraphs of text every time you want to sign up for some service.
The test isn’t really valid. If you compare the two forms they did more than just change from standard forms to “mad-libs” style. In conversion testing, it’s not unusual to see that kind of jump (or larger) for the tiniest of changes, so we shouldn’t all rush to attribute the increase to the new form style.
haha…this is really funny.I like it.
my name is _______ and my blackberry PIN number is ______
awesome.
Hi, my first name is _________ and my twitter name is @________bru. I would like a free ________ in exchange for a review of your product. I am __________ years old. Did I mention I am a teen?
Apple funboy on Twitter:
Hi, I’m ___________. Call me i__________. I want my password to be “SteveJobsRocks”. I mail is _______@me.com. Please, automatically RT anything #apple with “Steve Jobs rocks!” added.
PANDORA
Hey, I’m __________ and the last time I purchased music was in 19__ . In exchange for free streaming, I’m willing to listen to ads from __________, _________, and local jewelers. You may also guilt me into donating, to offset expenses, at this E-mail address: __________, every __________ Sunday and _________ Thursday of the month.
BACKUPIFY
Hello my name is __________ and my E-mail address is __________. I spent 10 months working on a Pownce account and an Adult Ning Site, only to be left with nothing. I know that Yahoo is going to screw up my Flickr account, __________, which I have spent ____ years building. I’m also terrified that some lame celebrity will be exploited and my Facebook: __________ and Twitter __________ accounts will be hacked.
I’m paying for peace of mind.
I quite like the posterous.com way of signing up. just email a post and your automatically emailed back with your post and login details. cant get much easier than that. unless you don’t do email.
My name is _______ and my ex-wife is called ____ and I would like you to post ___ pics of me and her sister every __ weeks and tag my wife in the photos just to _____ her off. My teenage children are ___ and __ and I would like to see ___ photos of them every week snogging random people of the oppiste sex every week along with __ drug references and ___ occasions of foul language.
We will be on holiday on the ___ of ____ so please create a group called _____ FTW and invite everyone on my kids’ friends list … and their friends as well. Also include my address which is __________. My neighbour is ____ who will, quite rightly, complain to the tabloid paper ___ about the chaos which will ensue. This will be ironic as the same paper should list the facebook group in their “Parties you must attend” section of their rag for ___ weeks. Also txt radio 1 with the details.
I would like at least __ percent of my facebook friends to be illiterate and __ percent of those to be drunk all of the time. I would prefer ___ percent of the females on my friends list to be slappers.
I would like my friends to post ___ lady gaga music videos a week and __ internet memes a week that date from the ‘Bert is evil’ period of the internet.
It would be really great if people I follow on google buzz and twitter and _______ and _______ and _______ and _______ and _______ and _______ and _______ and _______ and _______ and _______ and _______ and _______ and _______ and _______ and _______ and _______ and _______ link their accounts so I can see the same message on facebook. Cheers.
Please change my security settings every ___ seconds so I haven’t a clue if ___ knows that I called him a c**t in my status update last week an if my boss can see the picture of me and his _____ going at it at the Christmas party he paid for.
I would like to stay up until midnight to register a vanity name of __________ only for it to be taken so I have to add my year of birth and other details that will readily identify me to make it unique. This should not matter as i will never use it and you will never refer to the project again.
Please improve the layout of your site every __ months so those that do not have a clue about usability can create ___ groups about how much worse the new look is because it is different.
Oh, almost forgot. I would appreciate it if you censor breastfeeding, Kurdistan, Ron Paul and ____ but allow me to access groups that bully ___ number of high school students of which __ should go on to commit suicide.
Boomshanka
Sounds like practical plan to increase conversions. I am going to try it out and see what the difference in conversions is. http://drivingonlinesales.com/?p=355
I did this about four years ago, here: http://rareedge.com/contact/ and certainly got a *lot* more contact requests than ever before. In retrospect, I should have kept statistics and blogged about it :)
______, ______, __________, ______________________,
_________________, ______________________
_X_ I Accept
{ SUBMIT }
ThumbArcade.
During the _________ (Noun) my name is _________ (Proper Noun). When the _________ (Noun) _________ (Verb) _________ (Time of Day), my name is _________ (Proper Noun).
Your ____________ (Adjective) _________ (Noun) is the _________ (Superlative) _________ (Noun) of all time, that I _________ (Verb) myself _________ (Gerund, Intransitive) every time I _________ (Verb, Intransitive, Present Tense).
My email address is ___________. Please __________ (Verb) me with your _________ (Noun). I’m _________ (Adverb) __________ (Adjective) of your _________ (Noun), so feel free to ___________ (Verb, Intransitive, Present Tense) me any time.
___________ (Interjection)!
___________ (Proper Noun)
Absolutely hillarious. I love the humor of this post :-)
Facebook:
Hi, My name is ________ and mail id ____________. If you want to spam me please use this mail id ___________ which I no longer use. You can scam me with lead-gen for the 3 preferred products ____________, ____________ and ______________. Publish my status updates to the whole world without even asking me.
Apple App Store:
Hi, my name is _____________ neither I am sexy nor the content of my app ______ is overtly sexual. My app doesn’t contain any pic having any sort of skin. My app doesn’t support any of the Google’s technology. I will have no objection if you reject my app as it is your store at the end of the day, you have every right to do what you want to. I don’t believe in app distribution of ____ and ____________.
Apple iTunes,
I am willing to sign away my _________(noun) to your company and I would like you to charge me _________(obscene amount) for the privilege. If any else but you tried to pull this _______(expletive) I would denounce them as ________(famous dictator). Macs rule! My bank account number is __________(BRN) and account number _______________(AN) My user name should be maclover________(next open number) password steveJobsIsGod.
_x_ Yes I would like to receive emails telling me what I like no matter what it is.
YouPorn
My name is anonymous, aka Biggie (if you know what I mean, wink, wink). Please create my password for me, but so that it brings me to the attention of the great film makers on your site. I have several scripts to offer.