

Ask HN: Require a sign-up or allow anonymous/guest users? - amikazmi

When you launch a web application, more users will try it out if they don't have to sign up first.
Logically, if they like it enough they'll eventually sign-up to use more features.<p>But when you require a sign up in advance, you can:<p>1. Stay in touch with the user (contact for feedback or when features available)<p>2. Have better analytics (also, the sign up itself is a signal?)<p>3. Use social features<p>Any insights on the subject?<p>Any rule of thumb on where to draw the line and require a guest user to "convert"?
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wtracy
This is an interesting question that I'd love to hear other opinions on.

My idea that I haven't gotten to implement yet: Make it possible for the user
to get started without logging in, then force them to create an account after
they've started playing around.

The particular application that I specifically want to try this on is going to
be a document-oriented application. I'll let the user jump in and start
creating something without creating an account, but then make the user create
an account (or log into an existing account) to be able to save their work. If
you've already spent even two minutes creating something, having to type in an
email address and password seems trivial compared to having to start over
again if they want to come back later. (That's the theory, at least.)

The key in my mind is to get the customer invested in the application (even
slightly) before forcing them to make an account.

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amikazmi
I feel exactly the same- let users use and require sing-up for saving data
etc.

But for young applications, it is important to get in touch with the users,
and try to engage them-

There are some start-ups dedicated only to automatically send users email
after some conditions, and most of the service I use do it manually too (like
sending you "we noticed that after you built your form you didn't publish it
for a month, care to tell us why?")

If you don't know who your users are, how can you get the negative feedback?

Getting feedback only from the people who sign up is going to be skewed to the
positive side, and you'll have a problem realying on analythics for guest
users (because some "guest users" are can be the same user- from different
machine, or after cookie clean)

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superfresh
Depends on the product I think, however I do enjoy apps that I can "tour"
without signing up. Especially if the sign-up isn't quick.

If you can build value in your product without forcing me to login, I'm more
likely to want your product more because I've been sold on it. I think thats
important, I should _want_ to sign-up. This could be via a product tour, guest
account, even a demo video. Ultimately I'm window shopping so give me a reason
to come inside.

No matter what though whether you allow anonymous users or require a sign-up,
measure the funnel between guest-user and registration. Find out where your
users are bouncing and where you could improve the onboarding. Is the homepage
persuasive enough? Is the sign-up page itself losing users? Measure, iterate,
and repeat. I'm sure there's quite a bit to learn.

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aytekin
We do not require sign-up to use our form builder web app. You can access all
of the pages without login. You can create a form, copy it to your web site
and get submissions by email. (The email address can be entered on the form
setup.)

This gives people a chance to try the product without making a time
investment. We are getting close to 1 million users (not including guest
users) so it seems to be working pretty well for us.

Our product is JotForm if you would like to see how it works. www.jotform.com

~~~
amikazmi
Awesome, seems like it is working well for you.

How did you get feedback/nisights about users that started to use your
product, but fall of the funnel before entering the email address from some
reason?

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rdwallis
Not requiring signup makes development massively harder but I think it's worth
it.

All of the websites competing in my space require a signup except mine. Their
products may be way better but I don't bother to check and neither do my
users.

In fact I think you can make a viable business just by taking popular websites
and working out how to implement them without user accounts.

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jimmmylost
You should provide a good reason for visitor to become a user. never block
everything for guests(like many websites out there), you should provide a
great demo or any strong reason for people to become a user. That's clear
nobody will fill forms and do activation process for just a sentence that you
wrote on your home page. "Find Friends" - Signup "Live Chat" - Signup

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krapp
I don't mind signing up beforehand as long as the service comes with the
option to delete my account and data at will, assuming it doesn't delete
itself if I decide not to sign up.

And I don't mean "disable your account until you come to your senses" but
"it's like you were never there."

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Kanbab
Can you consider saving users data via cookies or ip? That way the next time
they come back their stuff is still there. Now on the second run and beyond,
you can remind them that they can take their data with them to other
computers, or privately, if they create a login.

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xSwag
Some people might have dynamic ip addresses. Cookies can expire and get purged
very easily. Same with local storage.

~~~
amikazmi
Also, people use many machines (desktop, laptop, tablets)

