On Jan 20, 2010, at 11:30 AM, Michelle Rajunov wrote:
Hi all,
The site we're doing is a contest users enter and submit photos. It
requires users to be over 18, or if they are between 14 - 17 they
have to go through a consent flow.
I got a question from a designer about what would be better in terms
of UX for the sign up form - asking the user for:
- their age with a text input /or select, OR
- their date of birth, with 3 select fields [day, month, year]
Just wanted to get some input about your experience with this.
Two things come to mind on this:
* How inclined to lie are your users going to be? If they perceive a
benefit to being "older" (or "younger"), or they don't want to reveal
their age, or they just want to f-ck with your system stats, they will
put in a false value -- typically 21, 69, or 99/100 (read: lowest
legal age, a sex reference, and something allowed but ridiculous high
and thus obviously false). You see this all the time on social
networking sites, especially hook up sites. If they are inclined to
lie, you can get better results with the full birth date entry, since
it's harder for them to calculate to false answers they want to give
the most. (You'll still get lots of lies, of course, but less obvious
ones and probably fewer overall.)
* Are you going to do anything else with the birth date info, such as
providing horoscopes, sending birthday greetings, or unlocking
additional functionality when they turn 18? If not, then the simpler
Age value is easier to implement and might be the better choice.
-- Jim
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