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I am designing a registration page for our site where we allow people to signup 3 different ways: Facebook, Twitter and also a manual signup form.

We want to drive people to use Facebook and Twitter but we also are allowing people to use a form if they choose to not use Facebook or Twitter.

Design example: https://skitch.com/christieday/ec44u/reg-backgrounds.psd-100-layer-91-rgb-8

My question

What would be good copy to use for this 'Signup manually' link? Signup manually isn't the greatest example I can think of. Some alternatives I have tossed around are "Dont have a Facebook or Twitter account? Sign up here" "Dont want to sign up with your facebook or twitter account? Create account"

Limitations

  • I need to keep this third option as a link since we want people to use FB and twitter instead.
  • Need to keep this simple and clear and limit our copy
  • Make sure this link is clear that you are signing up for the site, but in a way that is different from the above options.
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  • Will the link redirect you to another signup form? I would use a jQuery call (or equal) to show the signup form to the user. So when they click "Signup with email" you just do a slide toggle or such beneath the other two alternatives.
    – Hoshts
    Aug 15, 2012 at 19:50
  • Jquery would expand down after you click to reveal the form you signup with.
    – Christie Day
    Aug 15, 2012 at 20:32
  • Prefer the "Don't want to use..." version simply because "Don't have..." doesn't necessarily reflect the facts. I do have those accounts, but I would never use them to sign up anywhere else. But I think it would be better - and obvious enough - to use: "Create account" or just "Sign up" for the option not to use some other account's credentials.
    – Marjan Venema
    Aug 16, 2012 at 8:18

2 Answers 2

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We had a similar design challenge at my company. Ideally we wanted people to sign up with FaceBook or Twitter, but they also had the option to create an account specifically with us. (This is a website for an online school with a free learning platform). Here is what we ended up with.

I understand you would not like to show the form inline with the FB/Twitter buttons. However, you could use similar language:

"Sign up using Facebook" [button] "Sign up using Twitter" [button]

or

"Create a new example.com account" [text link]

I agree that testing this is important. Do you know that users want to sign up for your service using a social network? That's the first step. Then you could run a study with existing users that have signed up with a social network and potential users who are likely to sign up with a social network. Do a task based study and just have them "join" your website (don't use the verbs that are in the copy, so in this case sign up/create) and see their impressions and thought process as they reach this page.

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I've seen "Sign up with email" a lot. Although ultimately, split testing to find the best copy for your business objectives is going to be the way to go.

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