Thoughts on the anatomy of a registration page?

quick reg + collecting info after reg, or full reg upfront?

[rfung]

So I have a registration form for my users. It's a new site, so we can build it either way.

Case A: collect login info + personal info + educational history

OR

Case B: collect login info + personal info

User receives a confirmation email.
when user clicks to verify, is taken to page that says 'thank you, please complete your reg. form'
-collect education history

Thoughts on this type of reg. form construction?

I'm leaning towards the Case B since there's less information needed upfront - HOWEVER - another site in our industry does Case A just fine, and to be fair, the total info collected is not too much compared to the usual registration form any of us might go through that has any meat to it.

[D_Blackwell]

the total info collected is not too much compared to the usual registration form any of us might go through that has any meat to it.

It best not.

As a designer, I would choose to get everything that I need in one shot and call the process done. As a user, I would at all not care for registering, and then being asked for more information after confirming. (Especially since too too many people feel a need for information that they truly don't need, and that makes me prickly:))

[fabricator]

Be open about what info users need to supply to sign up. Nothing worse than finding on page 2 you need something that is in a dusty filing cabinet.