Have you seen what posterous do?

http://posterous.com/

They go even further, and all you have to do is email them with the account you’d like to use.

I think the way there’s is implemented kind of boggles the mind though.

Page 1:
Enter your email address to get started…
email address
submit/cancel

Page 2 – Upon submission:
We sent a message to the address you provided to confirm your registration. Check your inbox to finish registering…

Message was sent to: [largeFont]address[largeFont]
Wrong address? [link]Try Again[link].

Page 3 – Upon clicking confirmation link in email:
Fill out the rest of the fields here and we’ll get you on your way!
[fields…]
submit/cancel

The flow might be less than familiar but I think I am getting the warm and fuzzies.

The first and only piece of information that a user is asked for initially is their email address. The site then sends the user an email while they are entering their name, address etc. details. The time that it takes between entering the email address and filling in demographic information will allow enough time for the system to have sent the email (hopefully).
On the confirmation screen the site should then show a message saying that an email was sent, show the address that the email was sent to, and allow the user to modify the address and resend the email confirmation.

I’d argue that confirmation of email addresses (how does the system contact you) is a different problem than getting address / order info (where do I send stuff to you). Handling them as one process rather than two is the problem here.

I think the amount of mistakes in people who know how to use ctrl+v must be much much lower than that of people who don’t have a clue..

Form history helps, but that’s disabled too…

personally don’t think it’s great… for a proficient user.. but to a new user of the net – they will probably never see the field comment box!!!!

I work for a company that has to confirm booking and payment details with the customer. Should the email be mistyped (and copied), they will have no confirmation and then there’s potential for legal wrangling and negative publicity.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of web users weren’t even aware that they can cut and paste. So for the sake of irritating a few, it seems viable.

That said, this method is a bit crass and could do with a better solution.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/passwords.html

I think he’s gone cuckoo.

But disabling copy and paste is stupid – I’d guess that users that copy and paste have a lower failure rate than others, and doing it this way just irritates them.

What about this approach?

Don’t ask someone to type in their email address at all! Have them SHOW you their email address using the typical manner that they send email.

Something as simple as a mailto: link could be used to push a “signup key” into whatever mail client a person uses. Have a backend process feeding the new account creation routine harvest the incoming email address and link it to the new account.

The experience is reduced to two clicks: one on the link, the other to send. Done.

Maybe offer a fallback experience of typing into two fields for people who dont have a mail client handy or configured (or want to split work/home email addresses in mixed contexts).

The context’s certainly important – you wouldn’t want to type your email address twice in on the comments form on a blog or signing up for a newsletter.

The other thing to consider is how “life critical” the site is. Some accounts are more throw-away than others. There’s a big difference between online banking and joining a discussion forum, for example.

Mistyping your email has such severe repercussion that the couple of seconds inconvenience is worth it.

I’d be shocked if the number of users who mistype their email address isn’t far higher than 1/1000.

I know I have a number of times – once I even had an order cancelled (with no notification because they didn’t have my correct email address!).

Disabling copying does seem a little over the top – most browsers will auto complete anyway… but I’d be more annoyed about having to give them my exact date of birth!

Few people complain about having to type in their password twice (ok it’s obfuscated) but at least a mistyped password can be recovered if you have a valid email address!

One of the links provided in this post leads to the post about what you and other folks are describing. That’s a great helper.

The email address entered should be presented in the way like “A confirmation will be sent to [email]” in a different typo (bigger, differernt colour).

The rationale behind the solution was that it is more likely that typos will be recognized when the object is read in combination with the action. And users swith from entering to reading which raises awareness.

This means making using a larger font in the signup form – see this good example from 37signals.

https://signup.37signals.com/basecamp/Free

Especially if it’s a small form, it makes no sense to have a couple of small fields in the middle of an empty page and have people struggle with reading what they type.

Even for larger forms, I’d favour a larger font size and improved input accuracy against worrying that people may find the page too long.