So I send you a link to my wishlist. You open it, find a great gift, hit “Claim”… and that’s when a registration form appears: you need to create a password and confirm your email. For many people, that’s where their introduction to the whole wishlist concept ends.
The pace of modern life — and simple human laziness — breaks the user journey that wishlist services like this rely on. Our team has long been receiving feedback that Ohmywishes users find it hard to get their friends to actually join. People don’t claim gifts simply because they can’t be bothered to sign up for yet another app or website.
On paper, the wishlist concept sounds perfectly simple: someone creates a list of wishes, shares it with friends, and their friends each pick one and claim it so nobody gives the same gift twice. In practice, everything falls apart:
So some of my more resourceful friends don’t bother — they find a workaround in… Google Sheets. The setup goes like this: create a spreadsheet with a list of gifts, add links, share access — friends jump in and write down who’s taking what. It works, but there are catches:
- The element of surprise disappears — the wishlist owner can immediately see who claimed what;
- Anyone with the link has full edit access — the spreadsheet can be accidentally (or not so accidentally) ruined;
- And have you ever tried to navigate a spreadsheet on your phone?!
Yet people still use it because it’s “the fastest way.” I’ve personally received links to spreadsheets like these more than once:
There’s also another option. Some people use wishlist services that allow claiming without registration (yes, those exist). You get a link and claim right away. Sounds convenient, but the same problems surface:
- Anyone can claim anything — or everything;
- There’s no way to know who did it, or why;
- If you claimed something and then changed your mind, you can’t undo it.
The result: two extremes. Registration pushes people away, and claiming without it creates chaos.
Like many good ideas, this one came to me mid-run — somewhere around kilometer seven of a ten-kilometer loop through the park.
What if registration didn’t feel like registration?
You open a wishlist link, pick a gift, hit “Claim.” Then what? Instead of a standard registration form — a small pop-up asking for just your phone number or email address. You get a link or a four-digit code back. One click — and that’s it, the gift is claimed.
Technically, it’s still registration: the user still creates an account. But now we’re not asking for any unnecessary information.
The sign-up process happens quickly and almost invisibly. Later, the user can come back to the wishlist — to change their claim or pick a different gift — by signing in again.
And an authenticated user is a potential future wishlist creator in their own right. All they have to do is fill out their profile and add their own wishes.
The short version: we studied user behavior, came up with an idea at the intersection of psychology and UI design, and found a simple solution to a big problem. Your move, Excel.