Adam Kalsey

This is the blog of Adam Kalsey. Unusual depth and complexity. Rich, full body with a hint of nutty earthiness.

DocStoc bizarre form layout

19 Oct 2007

I was invited to the DocStoc beta program (Want your own invite? See below) and some of their form design choices left me a little puzzled.

The signup page has the standard form fields, username, password, email address, and a CAPTCHA. Do we really need a CAPTCHA here? Are thousands of robots really trying to sign up for the beta?

After filling out the form, I hit "Enter" and was taken to the login page. But as the form was submitting, I noticed this (click for full size)...

docstoc-signup.png

There’s another form field way over there to the right, next to the register button. You know, that register button I didn’t click because I hit enter instead? I assume that agreeing to the Terms and Conditions is required, but since I didn’t get an error and ended up on the login page instead, who knows?

Here’s the login page (click for full size).

docstoc-login.png

And here’s the login page after I tried my username and password (click for full size).

docstock-loginerror.png

I’ve highlighted the error message on there, because otherwise you might miss it. It’s light gray, not attached to the form itself, and other than the fact that you’re not actually logged in, there’s no other indication that something went wrong.

Apparently, since I didn’t agree to the terms, I don’t have an account. The registration form failed silently, leaving me frustrated.

Want to try it yourself? Here’s the invite letter I was sent.

Thank you for requesting an invitation to the private beta of www.docstoc.com : the premier community to find and share professional documents. Find free legal, business, and educational documents.

You can now invite your friends to join our private beta. They can register by following the link: http://www.docstoc.com/User/register.aspx and entering the Invitation ID: docstocfriends

Also, once you sign in, take a moment and UPLOAD SOME DOCUMENTS

If you have any questions, comments or feedback, please email the CEO directly at jason@docstoc.com

Thanks,

The Docstoc Team

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