On delaying logging in

We were having a discussion at work the other day about a new sign in widget that one of my workmates was designing. Possibly to become the standard for our network of sites. But more than this there was the question of when exactly to apply this sign in component. You see L was designing a useful new feature™ for the site but of course in order to use it best the user would have to be signed in (and required to register if not already a member), but our site has a history of putting up a meaningless registration barrier in the past and hence some people might be less likely to try the useful new feature™. What to do?

Well I suggested delaying sign in as long as possible. Actually let the user use the new feature and play around with it while they were on the site, and then add the value of memory only once they had decided that they liked the useful new feature™. This would require using cookies to store a bunch of information about how the user was using the useful new feature™, and working out a way to make sure they understood that without signing in their info would be lost at the end of their session. But if you consider the example of shopping carts we have been doing this kind of thing since the earliest days of e-commerce. I can vaguely remember one e-commerce site that required you to sign in to use the shopping cart, and I’m pretty sure they are no longer around.

I don’t think this kind of behaviours is always going to be appropriate, but whenever there is not a real security or other reason to require sign in, well maybe it is worth considering letting the user do as much as they can.

Of course the next step beyond this is the use of things like dojo storage wherein you could let a user do a whole bunch of work without having to login, and then synchronising once they finally do. Or alternatively a user could be using a tool, and signing in could be a signal to make a backup of their work (already saved locally) to the web applications web server. hmmm… just a thought anyway.