While signing up for a flickr account the other day, I had to sign up for a yahoo account (they own flickr). One thing that struck me was how well their signup form is designed.

When users fill out forms, even very simple ones, feedback is something they are always looking for. Rather than have them wonder if they filled the form out correctly, it's very comforting for them to see each field they are filling out is "correct", before moving on.

Once you've entered some information, yahoo's form responds with a simple check-box which means the user is comforted by the fact they have entered the right data, and it means when the form is submitted, it will quite likely be 100% correct the first time.

It also has grey-ed out text in the input boxes to give a little "hint" to the user as they fill out the form, which I'm sure many users would find helpful. To further add to this help, small text explainations appear on the righthand side when the input boxes are clicked upon.

One more point that I feel is worth mentioning, is the wording for the CAPTCHA. Rather than try and explain it, or use technical terms, they simply ask the user to "Type the code shown below".

All in all they seem to do everything right, the *only* thing that I wonder about is if the submit button should be moved inline with the other inputs.