baychi - go with the flow = onboarding and virality

Go With The Flow

Onboarding & Lessons in Virality

erin malone :: BayChi December 2010 @emalone

flow: To move or run smoothly with unbroken continuity, as in the manner characteristic of a fluid.

To exhibit a smooth or graceful continuity

The new user spiral

Initial Exposure

Education“The Sell”

Registration

Onboarding

First TimeUser Experience

Second TimeUser Experience

Third TimeUser Experience

The PassionateUser

Viral SpreadInitial Exposure

Registration

Education“The Sell”

The Usage Lifecycle

diagram Joshua PorterDesigning the Social Web bokardo.com

Engaging & Onboarding

Invite Homesteaders

Private Beta

Exclusivity

Private Beta

WhatUser wants to join a site that is currently in a private beta.

Use When• Use this pattern when you want to allow people to sign up to join a private

beta.• Use this pattern when you want to allow a small user list the opportunity to

invite N new users to grow your site virally but in a controlled fashion.• Use this pattern to seed the community before it’s open for everyone• Use this pattern to allow a small user list to “kick the tires” and offer

feedback post alpha but before opening to the public

Seeding

Potemkin Village

Instead of building a Potemkin Village, the architects of the relaunched dead.net site started with a judicious few groups and then let the community spawn the rest.

First Awareness

Awareness

News articles,facebook and twitter shares

Direct Invitation

Optimizing email invitations

Good: Uses full name for better recognition

Bad: Erin who?

Good: Uses name in From

Bad: From is a company,could be !ltered as SPAM

Optimizing email invitations

Good: Uses name in From

Good: Uses photos to show familiarity and that this is not from a stranger

Good: Large call to action button

Receive Invitation

WhatUser receives an invitation from a friend or connection to join a site.

Use When• Use when the experience is enhanced by having a network of

connections.• Use when growth of the service is dependent on friends of friends.• Use when you want to supplement traditional user acquisition with

user based referrals.

Send Invitation

WhatUser sends an invitation to a friend or group of friends to have them join in a site experience.

Use When• Use when the user experience is enhanced by having a network of

connections.• Use when growth of the service is dependent on friends of friends.• Use when you want to supplement traditional user acquisition with user based

referrals.• Use when a user has participated in the site enough to have formed an

opinion of the value, to then recommend it to a friend.• Don’t use right after registration when the user hasn’t actually used the site.

When presenting the option to invite others, do so after enough interaction with your site that the user actually has something to recommend.

•

Beware of spamming friends right after registration

Education“The Sell”

Homepage - try before you buy

Homepage with large call to action

Landing Page

Landing Page

Anatomy of a Landing Page

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and

Header

Awesome

feature highlight

could rotate or be different for

different users

Sign In

Call to Action

Take a Tour

Secondary cool

feature

Feature Grid

Feature X X X X

Feature X X X X

Feature X X X X

Feature X X X X

Feature X X X X

Feature X X X X

Footer

Call to Action

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and

Main feature points

Anatomy of a Landing Page

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and

Header

Awesome

feature highlight

could rotate or be different for

different users

Sign In

Call to Action

Take a Tour

Secondary cool

feature

Feature Grid

Feature X X X X

Feature X X X X

Feature X X X X

Feature X X X X

Feature X X X X

Feature X X X X

Footer

Call to Action

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and

Main feature points

Registration

Alternatives to the large form

Traditional reg form

Could be as simple as no sign up

Making it fun - DJ name

Keep it simple - 1. 2. 3.

123

Start the activities as part of the sign up process

Keep it simple - assign it to someone else

Sign Up / Registration

WhatUser wants to access their personalized information or an application that is stored on the host site.

Use When• Use when personal data needs to be stored or when there is

customization or personalization unique to the particular user.• Use when the site is a repository for user generated content and the

submissions or !les need to be identi!ed and/or managed by the author.

• Use when there are security or privacy concerns and the user's data needs to be protected.

Authorize

WhatThe user wants to participate on a site by bringing their data and !les over from another site.

Use When• Use this pattern when features on your site are enhanced by

accessing data and !les from another site (Site A).• Use this pattern when user generated content or data on your site

has the potential to enhance or enable other sites that your users may be participating in (Site B).

Onboarding

Ease in to the breadth. Offer one or two things to do

Build something as part of the sign up process

This list looks scary

The easiest activity is offered first

Suggest a list. One item is already crossed off.

Offer a tour of what to do first

2nd visit: Reflect back and offer another activity

Welcome Area

WhatA user registers for a new service and needs to have a sense of what can be done at the site and how to get started.

Use When• Use this pattern when a new user !rst accesses the site.• Use this pattern to acquaint the user with important or useful

features.

Re-engagement

Introduce new features

Use social peer pressure - all the cool kids are here

Re-engagement

WhatA user of your site hasn’t visited or participated in awhile.

Use When• Use this pattern when you want to entice users back to your site.• Use this pattern when you want to inform users of new features.

Care and Feeding of the

Passionate

Feature people & contributions prominently

Reward usage - compare stats with network

Badges, points & high reputation, reward use & quality

Both system generated & community awarded

Badges, points & high reputation, reward use & quality

Learn from gamesphoto by kurtxio

Named Levels

WhatParticipants in a community need some way to gauge their own personal development within that community: how far they've progressed; how deeply they've interacted with the community or its offerings.

Use When• You want to enable consumers to discover and identify high-quality contributors.• The community is competitive, but not highly competitive. While Named Levels

can have a competitive edge to them (my Wookie beats your Jawa!) they are perceived as less competitive than some other patterns (e.g., Ranking, Points, Numbered Levels) perhaps because they are less-empirical in nature.

• You want to enable your users to track their individual growth in the community, and suggest ways that they may attain the next level in the hierarchy.

Numbered Levels

WhatParticipants in a community need some way to gauge their own personal development within that community: how far they've progressed; how deeply they've interacted with the community or its offerings. Additionally, these same measures can be used to compare members, to understand who has more or less experience in the community.

Use When• You want to enable your users to track their individual growth in the community.• A large (or open-ended) number of levels are desirable. For example, World of

Warcraft currently allows users to advance to Level 70.• You want to enable easy comparisons between users. (At a glance, 'Level 1' is

more junior than 'Level 5'.)• You're trying to encourage a more-competitive community spirit.

Collectible Achievements

WhatSome participants in communities respond to opportunities to earn or win awards that can be collected and displayed to other community members.

Use When• You want to leverage users' compulsive natures. They may seem silly or trivial,

but Collectible Achievements can have an addictive quality when done right, and may compel your users to explore parts of your offering that otherwise might not appeal to them.

• You want to encourage the community to try out all aspects of your offering.• There are speci!c features or facets to your product offering that you'd like to

promote: for instance, if you'd like to encourage more trades in a fantasy sports context, consider rewarding users with an achievement upon the completion of their 10th successful trade.

Points

WhatIn some communities, participants want a tangible measurement of their accomplishments for personal satisfaction and to make comparisons with other competitors.

Use When• Use this pattern when the community is highly competitive, and the activities

that users engage in are competitive in nature (e.g., player-vs-player contests, or coaching a fantasy football team).

• Points are generally discouraged, except in cases where the fundamental, primary purpose of the community is competition, such as fantasy sports or games.

Leaderboard

WhatIn highly competitive communities using a ranking system, users may want to know who are the very best performers in a category or overall.

Use When• The community is highly competitive, and the activities that users engage in

are competitive in nature (e.g., player-vs-player contests, or coaching a fantasy football team.)

• You want to enable player-to-player comparisons, or permit users to de!nitively settle "Who is better?" arguments.

• Don't use this pattern when the activities that users engage in are not competitive in nature (e.g., writing recipes, or sharing photos).

Share and share alike

With some viral patterns totally stolen from a presentation by

Christina Wodtke

B=f(P,E)Behavior is a function of a

Person and his Environment

At hand

Tools for sharing are in prime real estate locations

Tools for sharing are in prime real estate locations

Tools for inviting are in prime real estate locations

First in list - incentives also give people a reason to share

Frictionless

The default errs on the side of the most viral option

The default errs on the side of the most viral option

Auto add - any member can add another

Respect the ethical dimensionRespect the ethical dimension

Impactful

broadcaster

consumer

Email this Network / Newsfeed

consumer

consumer

consumer

consumerconsumer

consumer

consumer

broadcaster

vs.

One to one

One to many

What’s your default?

Email this

Network / Newsfeed

Share This

WhatUser wants to share an object (pointer, media, or application) with one or more people. The application wants to be involved in the sharing in order to learn who is sharing what with whom, and how often.

Use When• A user wants to directly send a pointer, invite someone to view something, or add a copy of or reference to something to a shared or public space they own or have access to.

• Use when displaying content, resources, or applications on your site or elsewhere.

Connectedness

Carefully consider your method to jumpstart connections

Let users walk otherpeoples network to !nd people they know

Build on someoneelse’s social graph

Make recommendations once you have a piece of data to pivot on, like work or school

Connections: Find People

WhatThe user wants to !nd people she knows to connect and interact with on a site or social web service.

Use When• Use when you want to help users !nd people they care about who may already be using this site.

• Use this pattern to expand user’s circles of connections beyond friends and family.

• Use this pattern to encourage connections throughout the lifecycle of a person’s engagement.

Connections: Adding Friends

WhatA user has found people she knows on a social site and wants to add them to her circle of connections.

Use When• Use when user connections are a core part of the site’s experience.• Use when relationships will be con!rmed providing a two-way reciprocal relationship.

• Use when allowing following, where one user to follow another participant without reciprocity.

• Use when ignoring a connection request is allowed.

A word about the Password Anti-Pattern

DON’T

The Password Anti-Pattern

Just because everyone does itdoesn’t mean it’s right

Wrapup: The new user spiral

Initial Exposure

Education“The Sell”

Registration

Onboarding

First TimeUser Experience

Second TimeUser Experience

Third TimeUser Experience

The PassionateUser

Viral SpreadInitial Exposure

Registration

Education“The Sell”

Thanks

erin@emaloneerin@tangible-ux.com

available now!http://www.designingsocialinterfaces.com