… Continuing from where we left off yesterday as we incorporate a small business on Legal Zoom step by step…
6. Select your state. I’m choosing Colorado. You have to choose the state either from the drop down box or by clicking on the graphic (if you know your geography), followed by clicking the orange Continue button.
7. Next you see a Progress Bar, some information about the process–including the claim that most people complete it within 15 minutes–and the first two questions. Personally, I’m finding this interesting due to some similarities with our publishing site at Outskirts Press, which demonstrates in some ways that internet site best practices are not industry specific.
For instance, before our Version 4.0, we had a “progress bar” for the pre-production process. For a variety of reasons, we removed it, but I’ve always wanted it back. We also notify authors of how long the pre-production process will take, by saying “most authors complete it in X amount of minutes.” In our case, we say it can be done within an hour. That’s probably as realistic as Legal Zoom’s 15 minutes, but I digress.
8. The first question it asks is: Would you like to form a new corporation, or convert an existing business to a corporation, and the default answer is “Form a new corporation” which is the one I’m choosing.
9. You also get a chance to re-confirm your state again. It may seem repetitive, but this is actually a trick of website design. What this site has done is introduced the process with the “fun” (and easy) exercise of clicking on a big map. They could have just come straight to this text-intensive screen and not missed any steps, but their user-tests probably informed them that people seeing THIS screen first bailed on the entire thing. People like clicking on graphics. They don’t really like reading websites. This is why our Version 4.o website design at Outskirts Press has icons for every option/service we offer. But… I digress again.
10. Next question: What is the proposed name of the corporation? Please type it in EXACTLY as you want it to appear. (The name must end with “Corporation,” “Incorporated,” “Corp.” or “Inc.”) – Here’s where you get one of the benefits of using an online service. They’re going to “test” the availability of your name.
11. It also asks for two different alternative names to the Proposed Name of the Corporation question it asked above. Personally, I wasn’t prepared to have to have 3 total company names — I had a hard enough time coming up with one! So I just attempt to hit the SAVE AND CONTINUE button without supplying any alternatives, and it works. I guess if my name isn’t available, I’ll cross that bridge when it comes…
… to be continued…
President of Outskirts Press 