Why do forms ask to confirm email address?

Question

Why do most forms (mostly traditionally I believe) ask users to confirm their email address and have two fields of email address (one is called email address and second one is usually called 'Confirm email')? Most of the time this is done in registration or contact forms. Is it a way to filter out robots or is it database check and used only for certain DB types (MS SQL etc.). Or maybe developers want us to be 100% sure that the email address we input is correct that by getting us to input it twice we can check over it is actually correct (and correct in two places?).

Sounds like a silly question by why do developers do it instead of asking for the email address once?

For all I know is that if we can check the email in one form field against the DB entry then this is sufficient and build security in another way.

Answer 1

This is a well-meaning but ultimately misguided attempt to prevent people from accidentally typing their email address incorrectly.

It's misguided because it forces every single user to waste an extra 10 to 20 seconds re-typing their email address in order to catch a very small number of typos. It is extremely inefficient and shows a complete lack of respect for users' time. It puts a burden on all users for the sole benefit of the service provider who wants to ensure clean data. It's a classic "externality" in an economic sense.

UX/UI and web developers must always remember that any inefficiencies that we (deliberately or inadvertently) design into an interface are multiplied by how often that interface is used. You might think it's only an extra 10 seconds to ask someone to retype an email address, but if you have 100K new users a month, you're wasting 3,300 hours of human productivity each year just to prevent a few typos, which can easily be handled through other methods (email syntax validation and sending an authentication code to the email address that is entered).

What boggles the mind is when forms are developed to disable copy/paste on the "confirmation" field. If you're going to go through that much trouble, just send the user a confirmation link to ensure they typed the correct email address.

In short, "Please re-enter your email address" is a lazy design that wastes peoples' time and provides no benefit that can't be realized by other means that also respects users' time.

Answer 2

It is important in order to avoid typographical errors.

Answer 3

As you mentioned, It is done to be 100% sure. It is done because developers want the user to review that the email address they have given is correct as a confirmation mail would be sent to that email and if the email is wrong then if would lead to a spam mail sent and at the same time the user may not complete the whole login procedure again.