Imagine you’ve been hired in to design a paywall for well known newspaper, with a brief to deliver the best sign-up rates possible. Is this how you’d do it?
Clicking any link in on the homepage of thetimes.co.uk triggers a lightbox.
Most of the lightbox real estate is dedicated to a photo of a military helicopter.
Put yourself in the shoes of an end-user, and consider these questions:
- Is it obvious that there’s a free trial available? How long does it last and what content does it apply to?
- How do you feel about being required to enter your date of birth into a registration form? And your full postal address? And being asked to enter your phone number?
- What paid packages are available? What’s the difference between “subscription” and “membership”?
- What tangible freebies do you get with membership?
So, here’s my question for you, dear reader: if you wanted to help improve their sign-up rates, what would you change, and why?
Firstly, I’d make the close button clearer, it’s not in a natural place (top left or right).
Remove the giant image in favour of clearly defining what the user gets in return for their money and how it differs from other news websites.
Realistically, what registration details do they need?
– Name
– Address
– Credit card details
– Email
The 3 boxes (more info, register and login) should be removed.
Of course, I probably wouldn’t use a modal dialog either.
This really needs to be trimmed down – it appears to offering a lot to the user, but really it’s leading them down a headache road.
I think a simple popup saying “You need to be registered to view this content” with login controls, as well as a link stating “Find out about the benefits of registering” – the registration page itself should have pricing options and free trial information etc.
Essentially there’s information overload/confusion offered straight up.
1. Have a call-to-action on the homepage that clearly states “Free 1 month trial / no credit card needed” (etc)
2. When a user clicks a link on the homepage, take them to a new page – where you have much more space to convince them to sign up.
3. On the new page, give some teaser content, even if it’s barely more than featured on the home page.
4. Show payment options side-by-side, so the user can easily compare.
From a purely technical standpoint, their bounce rates must be ridiculous because the sign up lightbox doesn’t show up until the page is fully loaded. So if I click on a headline while the page is still loading I get absolutely nothing, assume the site is broken, and leave.
When I did sign up, I found it disturbing that they mentioned nothing about future cost involved, but at least I didn’t have to give them my CC details.
Crowdsourcing is fantastic isnt it? Giving a few guidelines and then see what the community has to say to pick the best ideas. It can really improve production speed…well what it also does is transforming creative skills into selecting/picking the right ones-skills.
There are so many tools available to do it end-user centred rather than asking professionals who think they know the user but in the end arent the user.
The user-requirements you need to gather will definitely not show up in this blog here because mostly professionals will give their opinion and tell you how they would do it I assume.
@Matt, I’m not sure I follow what you’re saying, but I think you’re having a dig at the idea of being lazy and just crowdsourcing for design ideas, rather than doing real end-user research. If that is indeed what you mean, I agree with you. This isn’t intended to be a crowd-sourcing approach to design. It’s just a fun discussion.
@Alex I noticed that too – and when the lightbox does eventually load, it jumps you back up to the top of the page before appearing, which is a bit jarring.
@Paul, @Simon @WG I agree. They really should be doing extensive multivariate testing on the registration/payment journey, since it really is the lynch-pin of their new business model. I don’t think they currently are.
Disclaimer: I am not a designer (I just finished my first iPhone app).
1/ Close button as mentioned above.
2/ Lazy registration, Name, Email, and pwd.
3/ Read more link to find out the what-fors of the new regime
4/ 3 (or so) buttons underneath the image in a “plans” box; a) free plan, b) paid subscriptions c) paid memberships, with “learn more” and “sign up now”
Box 2 = “already registered”
Box 3 = “to continue please register”
I’d consider allowing people to click through to that article for nothing. That way, the nag box becomes just that, a nag box. Then, if the user wants to constantly avoid the nag box, they sign up.
Either that, or remove the nag box, and cut the articles (every article) to a couple of paragraphs.
Notwithstanding that this is a monumentally risky idea just as Jeff Jarvis says.
PS the Lightbox link in image 2 is hhttp, not http, so I am getting an error.
I’m confused. Online news is free. Who’s going to pay?
Fools, I assume. If I were unethical and interested in taking advantage of fools then I’m sure I’d do something like adding obnoxious popups, downloads, tricky ui, unconscionable privacy terms, etc. Then as soon as you get enough credit card numbers max them all out and move to Mexico.
But I have some morals.
Assuming that you can charge for text content online is foolhardy. Even ebooks’ days are numbered.
At the time of posting, the old site (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/) is still live, so you can still get all the times content for free.
I wonder why they didn’t set up redirects?
It seems timesonline.co.uk contains different articles to thetimes.co.uk. Timesonline.uk is currently free to access, thetimes.co.uk is behind a paywall.
Apart from all the aforemetioned: what is this huge helicopter image trying to tell me? That SAS is gonna come and get me if I don’t sign up?
Seriously: I most likely just clicked on a specific link or image to get to a specific story – which is a bit like putting it into my shopping cart. So I would love to see exactly what I want now somewhere in the context. The way it is it merely looks like a popup trying to get me to sign up for Her Majestys Overseas Services.
I’d do a really simple lazy registration/sign-in screen:
http://skitch.com/jaygooby/dejcj/times-paywall
Tease them with the article they clicked on underneath, just ask for an email to continue to read it.
Send all the paywall blurb in the email. If they access another article after some pre-determined session time-out, tell them to complete the registration process/check their in-box/send them another registration email.
The newspaper industry needs a hero with nothing to loose!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWteTA_XncQ
I’m not going to let my paper die… I’m not going to let any paper die… I’m not going to stop until I destroy the mainframe.
– The mainframe of what?
The internet!
– Do you even know how the internet works?
@Sajid It looks like timesonline.co.uk is now down for the count. It is now redirecting to thetimes.co.uk. http://j.mp/aKLhqr
I wonder why many of you feel the need to keep the modal window.
Ideally since they’re showing a brief home page snippet anyway, I’d go to the page of the article, but only show the snippet and registration/subscription information below it if the user isn’t logged in and subscribed already. No modal box, no jumping screens, no hard to find close button.
1. Is it obvious that there’s a free trial available? How long does it last and what content does it apply to?
Yes, but neither the content nor the period is clear. They talk about “exclusive free preview†and “for a limited periodâ€.
2. How do you feel about being required to enter your date of birth into a registration form? And your full postal address? And being asked to enter your phone number?
You need to be 18 to read a newspaper? What did I miss? Postal address, e-mail address and phone number for a trial? No way! I know this newspaper and it is quality they deliver. I was really interested in a trial until I saw the second screen with all those questions. Also, on the first screen they ask you for an e-mail address you need to confirm on a second screen? This is tricking people. A potential customer thinks that all they will ask for a trial is an e-mail address and fills it in … . At The Times they must have thought that if the customer refuses to fill in the questions on the second page, they at least have her/his e-mail address.
3. What paid packages are available? What’s the difference between “subscription†and “membership�
£50 for 12 months. Subscription is only the newspaper; membership you also get Culture or Travel. I need to admit that I found this info on http://www.mytimesplus.co.uk/. On the “real†page of The Times, I couldn’t find how much I need to pay for a subscription. Also, everything is in £. They are maybe not interested in “foreign†paying customers.
4. What tangible freebies do you get with membership?
That info is listed in the section “What do I get?†I guess.
I would go elsewhere. If a traditional new org. puts up a paywall, I go elsewhere.
I’d have it save my session correctly in Chrome.
I’m a regular timesonline reader, and while I’ve signed up, it bugs the hell out of me that if I come back to it after a few hours, I have to sign in again, especially if I want to read another article. At least give me keyboard focus on the login details in the box so that it’s easy to sign in!
As someone else says, it is also annoying that you can’t sign in till the page loads.
No, I wouldn’t have done it this way – and that’s probably why they didn’t hire me. Silly them. :-)
I think the more interesting discussion to be had is this:
What are the chances that some good design decisions were sabotaged by stakeholders?
I wouldn’t trust a Murdoch to treat users with any respect. :o
As a simple walking-by user i don’t see any reason on that page why i should register at all. There is that link “learn more” but why i even should do that?
There should be more content to convince me it’s worth giving a try, like at least a short list of features included or something.
Okay now, i want to see what this trial is about, but what’s next? I don’t mind giving out my age, but postal address? There’s only one reason they’d need it at all – to send me spam on paper. I’m safe from that being overseas, but my phone number… SMS spam offers don’t have any boundaries.
Now why are they so damn surprised that noone wants to register?
For the sake of argument, if I had to keep the modal window, I would just make it say “You must be a member to view that page. Sign up for a free trial today to start enjoying the best newspaper in the UK” Then a reg form with email and password. You’d probably want something that describes how the free trial actually works as well (is it for 30 days? 10 articles?)
Once people are signed up for free, feed them the premium membership concept at the end of articles (“Enjoyed this article? Get more with Premium membership, only £10 a month”).
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