Anyways, all the points seems good.

Nice post Justin

Justin Palmer

This may be the Number One reason form are left unfilled – developer/codetalkers simply don’t get that a 12-digit alphanumeric batch with special characters thrown in simply isn’t what we “general publica” think of as a password. Additionally, when we “break” the form by putting in a code or a character that the form can not feed on, more often than not, the error code is ridiculously unhelpful and, worse, dysfunctional.

Bottom Line?

If you are going to require a passcode that has all these difficult elements, good SEO and user experience requires that you do these four things:
#1
Explain the error to the user so that we can make the changes necessary in one step – making me riddle it out over 4-10 submissions simply isn’t a formula for success.
#2
Remember, the error I put in a field might be at the top of the page – have the courtesy to have the cursor take me back to the first of the offending areas – or highlight the fields that bother the internal brain of the form – again, don’t make me riddle it out – it’s your form.
#3
If you need things to be more secure and require special characters to promote healthy strong password compliance – tell me that before I start and give me a suggestion for what I might use – e.g., “youruSualpaSSword+@”. Tell me what you need.
#4
If you don’t need the password until the end, then make the forms and the process allow for as much openness as possible. Login means that I have to stop exploring – it makes me “feel” inside – or it makes me want to go to a site where they invite me in more as a guest and don’t require me to be their BFF on the first date. It’s psychology, but it works.

Thanks for listening.

SB

Love #11 as it’s a huge petpeeve of mine as well. Users that are used to being more productive by using keyboard shortcuts shouldn’t be penalized simply because table layouts are not done correctly. Kudos!

Anyway for the beginners that read this post, don’t forget to proper validate the user input and avoid hacking attempts on your brand new form, especially SQL injection and XSS.

Really its great tips for Form Optimization

All great points, but if you have a double opt-in you should be OK.

All great points. A decision like removing a captcha must be considered in light of other ramifications.