Why Do They Want My Email Address Twice?
I can understand typing passwords twice, but...
I've seen a lot of website registration forms that requires me to type my email address twice:
| Email Address (required): | |
| Retype Email Address (required): |
Why is this? Who invented this practice? Does it work (for whatever reason it is invented for)?
Are you annoyed by this practice? I am.
Have you designed such a registration form yourself? Why did you decide to do it? (Not counting "Everybody was doing it?")
Re: Why Do They Want My Email Address Twice?
Re: Why Do They Want My Email Address Twice?
Re: Why Do They Want My Email Address Twice?
I'm annoyed too. It's brought to you by the wonderful rules of CSS. I'm learning my CSS, floats, layouts and positioning as fast as I can to address the issue. A workaround is to use the tab key to navigate to the button and then press the space bar.
Thanks for pointing this out. I've noticed the same problem on the authoring screens and didn't realize that user screens are also affected.
Re: Why Do They Want My Email Address Twice?
But there is a difference between passwords and email addresses. Usually, the password you typed is not echoed on the screen. So the psychology of the second password request is like "OK, you've just made up a password for me. Let me see you type it in again just to make sure you remembered it right."
The same thing cannot be said of the email addresses because they are echoed back on the screen. Even if there is merit to the double request of email addresses, the question remains "Why email addresses?" And indeed, why not make the user type in the login name twice just to make sure it is entered right? Why not make the user type everything in twice?
Re: Why Do They Want My Email Address Twice?
Because email addresses are are the primary identifier in most of these online systems.
I didn't say it was a good idea -- just that that's why they do it.
A much better solution is to use a separate confirmation channel. E.g., send a confirmation email to the address which requires either an email reply or a web response (confirmation page or code). This has the added benefit of knowing that the email address is actually valid and connected to that user (rather than being any random address).