Are my Sign Up form error messages correct?

Question

I just got done with my Sign Up form set up for my File Sharing & Hosting service and now I'm at a point where I'm developing the returning of form errors.

There are 6 fields, and they are all mandatory which is said in the paragraph above the form. Error messages will be displayed in red and under the input it is about.

I came up with some error messages, but I am not sure if they are the most user friendly or if I need to reword them in any way for more consistency?

1. User doesn't fill in a name or fills it with illegal characters:

   • Please enter your name.

2. User doesn't fill in an email or fills it with an invalid email:

   • Please enter your email address.

3. User doesn't fill in a password or fills it with less then 6 characters:

   • Choose a password at least 6 characters long.

4. User doesn't fill in the reCAPTCHA code or fills it incorrectly:

   • Please enter the correct reCAPTCHA text.

5. User doesn't check the checkbox that agrees with the Terms:

   • You must agree to the terms of service.

Answer 1

1. User can enter his name later in his profile, if he wants to. The ultimate rule of any form is to be as simple (use as less fields) as possible. Users are lazy.
2. Assuming you have proper labels above your fields (and that all of them are mandatory), it makes sense to highlight erroneous fields with red outline and display one "Please fill" message at the beginning of the form.
3. This needs a little explaining, what's a confirmation email? Do I enter an email two times?
4. Instead of recovering, try to prevent the errors. Use some kind of password strength indicator in order to be sure the password is fine before submitting the form. Another question – are you certain that weak password is such a big issue?
5. Are you sure you need the captcha thing? There are less intrusive techniques to filter out the bots. Also why don't you consider social logins?
6. One way to solve this is to have a "By submitting this form you agree to the terms" message instead of checkbox. The other one (applies to other fields as well) – is to have submit button disabled before every field is good to go.

Hope it makes sense.

Answer 2

Your error messages can be more polite and specific.

You cannot have this message "Please enter your name." for both your conditions. If the user has entered a name and if you show him the above message then he will be confused. You need to tell him more specifically what is the error and what will be the correct input. Like "Your name cannot have illegal characters"

I have some suggestions for you.

User doesn't fill in a name or fills it with illegal characters:

• Please enter your name. / Your name contains illegal characters

User doesn't fill in an email or fills it with an invalid email:

• Please enter your email address. / The email you have entered is invalid. Please enter a valid email.

User confirmation email doesn't match with the user input email:

• Your entered email and confirmed email does not match.

User doesn't fill in a password or fills it with less then 6 characters:

• Your password needs to be at least 6 characters long.

User doesn't fill in the reCAPTCHA code or fills it incorrectly:

• You entered an incorrect reCAPTCHA code.

User doesn't check the checkbox that agrees with the Terms:

• You need agree to the terms of service.

Answer 3

Your error messages seems correct to me (however, I'm not a native english speaker).
Edit : If you want to keep the e-mail confirmation, I would recommend you to say that the two e-mails doesn't match (with a better english than mine ;) ).

It goes a little bit out of the scope of this post, but since you are concerned by your UX, here is an advice for you : I wouldn't recommend you to ask the user to confirm his e-mail address, instead, you could simply offer him a way to change it's e-mail if he hasn't received any mail. You could also offer him a way to reload the reCAPTHA code and/or to load an audio CAPTHA if he has filled it incorrectly.