The OpenWater Blog

Product Update: Login / Create Account Page

When we built the OpenWater platform we did a lot of research to best understand what users are looking for in their login process. Our initial strategy concluded that Amazon knows what they are doing, so we should try and copy their workflow.

At the time, Amazon asked for just your email address and then would determine if you had an account (and ask for a password) or prompt you to create a new account.

Thus, the OpenWater Platform looked like this:

If you look at Google’s email service, they now also ask for an email upfront:

It turns out copying Google and Amazon was not a strategy that really resonated with our customers. In hindsight it makes sense, at both GMail and at Amazon they are most likely to have a repeat interaction with a customer, than having someone brand new come by.

With the OpenWater platform, we recognized that new entrants and returning entrants both account for about 50% of web traffic on a given day. New entrants can be confused on answering the question “how do I begin.” Customers have longed asked for us to address this.

Going forward we have a responsible, full width login or create an account page.

We’ve been testing it out over the last 4 weeks, and the results are clear. We used to get about 35 support requests a month asking to update or change the login process. Since making the changes we’ve gotten just 1.

Kunal Johar

Kunal Johar is the OpenWater platform evangelist. He currently manages our development teams and enjoys diving into the fray. Find him in our community chat room.

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