Removing all nav links from the order/signup page. What do you think of this practice?

Question

If you go to Assistly, you'll notice their pages have a navigation bar at the top... except for the signup page. I have seen this practice where all links are removed from the order page. This practice somehow rubs me the wrong way. It's like trying to trap a visitor and not let them get distracted by other links. I am not saying it's wrong and I understand why they are doing it. It's that when I see it I am conscious about it and I know what they're to do and I feel it's a bit sleezy.

What do you think?

ADDITION:

After reading some comments, I think my question is a little misunderstood. The question is from the user's perspective and not from the site's developer/owner's side.

Answer 1

This is a common (and smart) practice, but perhaps it might help to look at it from a different perspective.

Every page should have a primary call to action, that is, an action that the user is supposed to take. The primary action is the reason for the page existing at all. There are also secondary calls to action, actions that are also important for the user to take, but not as important as the primary action.

Good and effective design will make use of calls to action in the following ways:

• Align the website's desired actions with the user's desired actions. Put another way, if your business goals intersect with your user's goals, your business goals are much more likely to be achieved.
• The secondary calls to action will complement the primary call to action, but represent less of a commitment. Assistly does this on their front page, where the primary call is to sign up, but the secondary call is to take a product tour.
• The calls to action are clear and obvious. This includes everything from copy to design.
• The primary call is differentiated from secondary calls to action. Again, look at Assistly's front page to see this done well. It's obvious what the desired course of action is, yet the secondary call is still visible as well.
• The promise of the call to action is consistent with the results. In other words, match the expectations of the user. If I click on a free sign up button, I don't want to be taken to a page that makes me enter my credit card information.
• Anything that distracts from the calls of action should be removed. In Assistly's case, the user wasn't tricked into going to the sign-up page. The user is there, they have one goal. The business also has one goal. Everything else should be removed. Notice that they also have secondary calls to action that complement the primary call: Viewing price details for full plans and the customer support email address at the bottom. Even all the text on the page is designed to help the customer complete the form.
• Test Everything. If there is doubt about whether or not an element should be on a page, test conversion rates with and without it. In the case of whether or not present navigation should be present, I think it might depend on the situation and that one should rely on the objective results of a test.

In short, your example is actually an example of a series of calls to action done right. Assistly clearly shows their offer, they've aligned it with their customer goals, they don't try to trick anyone, and they remove any obstacles or distractions from their sign up form.

Edit:

However, note that Assistly is a service and is essentially offering one product. For websites selling multiple products, the sales funnel is not as simplified, though the same basic principles apply. In an ecommerce website, you may want to have upsells and related products as secondary calls to action, though they should never subvert the primary call, which is to checkout.

Generally, it's best to make any user funnel as simple, clear, and short as possible. Doing so greatly increases your chances of success.

Answer 2

Looking at this particular example, I don't really have a problem with it. It's a clean, well designed page with pricing information prominently displayed and even has a mini FAQ at the bottom.

As you mentioned, getting rid of the navigation links does eliminate some distraction, and it makes for a cleaner, more focused page. It also limits the temptation to accidentally navigate away from the page before submitting the information.

That said, they might have considered making the "Assistly" logo at the top active, allowing users to click that to return to the home page, but I don't think it's really a major issue that they didn't. Similarly, they could have put a "Cancel" or "No Thanks" button next to "Begin Trial". That would make the page more usable, but I don't think it quite rises to the level of sleazy not to do it. (It's certainly not uncommon to prevent an easy escape.)

Edit:

I just noticed something. It all depends how you get to the sign-up page. If you get there by clicking a button that basically says, "Sign me up!", I continue to believe the design of the page is acceptable.

However, if I get to the "sign-up" page by clicking "Pricing", now I'm not happy. I didn't navigate to this page to sign up, I navigated because I want to see pricing. I should be able to continue navigating at this point, but I can't without resorting to the Back button. I don't expect to need the Back button when navigating around a site like this, and it takes me out of my flow to have to do so. Some users might even be confounded by having to do this.

So, the crux of the problem is that the site designers have attempted to use the sign-up page for more than just sign-up (e.g., for seeing pricing), but this makes the lack of navigation buttons an actual problem, rather than just a justifiable design trade-off.

Answer 3

It is bad for usability on your site. And it is especially bad in the ordering process (both for the business and the user). How does the user get back to buy more products? You don't give them a way to get back to the main site and add more things to their cart? It is really annoying to have to hit the back button a bunch of times or to have to manually change the URL in the browser. I know that I have personally chosen to NOT add something else to my Amazon order at least once because I didn't want to go through the hassle when I was on the last step before placing the order.

The "benefits" you get by doing this are not worth the user frustration and potential monetary losses that you could suffer by doing it.

Answer 4

My thoughts:

1) Sign up is not part of the daily flow. It's a one-off page. (one and done, really) 2) The users don't navigate there via the menu bar. So it's not like they're removing the doorway that got you there 3) There's much to be said about keeping distractions to an absolute minimum on a sign up page.