[computator]

> When you're filling a signup form, you instantly know what information they'll need from you. You can decide if you're comfortable sharing them before you engage in filling it.

If only that were true! The trend is to ask for a little bit info at a time, then take you to the next page where it asks for other info, and so on. You don't see at a glance the whole form anymore.

I resort to filling in fake info on sign-up forms, order pages, employment applications, airline/hotel reservations, etc., just to find out what questions they'll ask so I can decide whether to refuse before I tell them anything.

And also to find out key information they tell you only at the end (sales tax, shipping cost, etc.).

[KirinDave]

They (and we, I admit to doing this with Level) do this because statistically more people make it through the information collection if we stagger it out.

People see a fleet of fields and just go. People see 2 fields and they tend to just enter in data. Even if they leave and come back, mobile apps and websites can much mor easily checkpoint this (digression: I think it's easy to checkpoint a form but lots of people don't and only web toolkits make it drop-dead easy to do).

Sorry you're on the right hand side of the computer competency power law distribution.

[shangxiao]

Along similar lines, I detest a trend I've noticed where login forms show the username/email & password on separate forms. It's annoying to have to click through more than is necessary and additionally breaks my password manager's auto login.

[thanatropism]

Tumblr has done this for how long?

Worse yet, they have very similar (except for color) buttons for "Log in" and "Sign up". Often if you have bad internet and the last layer of the page hasn't loaded yet, you don't know which button to press.

[ge0rg]

The worst offender here is Microsoft, if you have a personal and a business account under the same email address (that alone is a major UX fuckup). But they add insult to injury by showing you a typical email+password form, and when you press [Tab] after the email address and start typing your password, the form is replaced under your eyes with a dialog to choose which account you want to log in, only then followed by a password prompt.

[gozur88]

>I resort to filling in fake info on sign-up forms, order pages, employment applications, airline/hotel reservations, etc., just to find out what questions they'll ask so I can decide whether to refuse before I tell them anything.

That's a good strategy, particularly since there are websites that send everything you type, even if you erase it or don't submit.