[squeakland] account signup fields

[Timothy Falconer]

Hi everyone,

We're debating which squeakland.org account fields to include when  
people sign up for a showcase account.   Such signup could occur  
within Etoys itself ("create an account, it's free!") or on the  
website itself.

Some constraints that have come up in the current conversation:

1) we want to limit the fields within Etoys because of vertical space  
limitations in the dialog box

2) we want to limit the mandatory fields to allow quicker signup

3) we want to assure that private information from children remains  
private (last name, other descriptive stuff, perhaps photos)


Here's the central issue at hand, from my perspective . . .

Signup is the key moment for Squeakland and Etoys from a community- 
building, user research, and publicity standpoint.

It's the time when we'll get the largest number of people to:

1. subscribe to our newsletter

2. tell us about themselves (where they live, how they're using etoys,  
etc)

3. allow us to later email them questionnaires or announcements  
(squeakfest), etc.


The vast majority of people that signup for a showcase account WILL  
NOT join the forums, or separately subscribe to the newsletter, or  
visit the chat channel, or join a mailing list.

The people that will do these things should be considered  
"enthusiasts", and hence, people that we really don't need to convince  
("preaching to the choir").

We could allow people to come back to their profile page and add this  
stuff, but MOST won't.  Only enthusiasts, people we don't need to  
convince.


Imagine hundreds of people who are mildly curious . . . the signup to  
check out their daughter's project on the showcase, which is otherwise  
hidden.   They're intrigued enough to download Etoys.   Like MOST  
PEOPLE, they go to sleep and forget all about it for months.   Then  
comes our quarterly newsletter, and they read a cool story about  
Uruguay.   The open up Etoys again and start playing around again.   
Maybe this time they'll stick with it.

This is the essence of publicity and marketing . . . the drumbeat, the  
heartbeat, of our own activity, reminding people we're still here and  
doing great stuff.


So that said, here's the fields we're considering:

* username
* password (twice)
* email address

These are the bare minimum, and the only required fields.

More fields:

* first name
* last name
* tell us about yourself

These are currently on the newsletter subscribe form.   Currently,  
none of this collected information appears on the website.  We can  
keep these fields private in account profiles as well, to protect  
children.  Nearly everyone who signs up for the newsletter writes a  
very useful description about their location, interest in Etoys,  
affiliated organization, etc.   We have hundreds of these comments,  
which is invaluable for our community-building work.    I'm strongly  
in favor of keeping the "tell us about yourself" field and not showing  
it unless explicit permission is given.

* checkbox for newsletter
* checkbox for general announcements
* checkbox for weekly showcase highlights

We want as many YES's for all three as we can get.   More YESes mean  
more audience.   People can always opt-out from any mailing, but it's  
in our best interest to at least ask them for a YES.

To keep the in-Etoys box short, we could leave these out, but the  
question remains . . . what's the default?   If all NO's, then we lose  
a major source of people who would otherwise have said YES.

(I know that most of us have grown accustomed to always saying NO to  
such forms, but in our case, with our worldwide enthusiastic audience,  
it's more likely people will say yes, than no.)


Other fields we could add by flipping a switch:

* organization
* address
* address_two
* city
* state
* zip/postal code
* country
* time zone
* home phone
* work phone
* want my friends to see my friends
* show my first/last name to public
* show my friend list to public
* photo/avatar


The address fields were used for squeakfest registration, but likely  
shouldn't appear in showcase accounts, except perhaps for country.    
Likewise with the phones . . . we shouldn't ask.

The last three are things we could add to the profile, defaulting to  
the most private settings.   The underlying software has much of the  
functionality of sites like Facebook, etc.   My current plan is to  
allow people and groups to "friend" other people, which will allow  
them to see their private Etoys projects.  Such a thing happens when  
you "tell a friend" and include a message that's email to someone,  
which is a great way to build community.


Lastly, we have full questionnaire support as well, so we can add any  
questions we want, though only to the web profile.   Again, most  
people won't go back to fill out their profile, but we *can* send an  
announcement saying "Tell us more about yourself, fill out this quick  
questionnaire", but only if someone has said YES to general  
announcements.

Anyway, let me know what you think about all this.  We want this to be  
a community conversation.

Take care,
TIm