User:SPage (WMF)/Return to

This is a draft

Improving the new user experience of known users with returnto

 * "Too long; didn't read"
 * If you provide a link for users to create an account, think about where you want the user to be afterwards; if you don't want your wiki's default behavior, then set the  parameter accordingly with something like

What happens after account creation
On WMF wikis after changes to "single user login" and the CentralAuth extension in July 2013, the user is returned to the page she was on before creating an account.

This "returnto" works because the Login / Create account links at the top right of each page pass the forms a returnto URL "query string parameter" ( after the ? in a URL) into the form; this provides the necessary information to return the user to the current page. You can see it: if you hover over the Login / Create account links at the top right, or if you are already logged in, hover over the Log out link. You should see  in the URL  (If you're using a phone or tablet, click the link, note the URL, then come back here.)

How GettingStarted changes this
The Editor Engagement Experiments team works to improve the new user experience, often called "Onboarding", to encourage new users to participate and become active editors. The Getting Started extension inserts itself so the user sees a "Welcome to Wikipedia, User name!" page that invites the new user to perform easy editing tasks. The return to is still available as a [← No thanks, return to the page I was reading] link.

Always set returnto!
Many pages invite users to create an account: tutorials, promotions, anonymous user templates, special pages for events such as "hackathons", etc. If you providing your own link to create an account (instead of telling the reader to click "Create account" in the top right), then there is no automatic returnto &mdash; he or she will just be returned to the default "Main page" for the wiki. So if you provide your own link to create an account, you can and should set the  parameter - you might as well send the user somewhere more useful. You should use the template and pass this in. Here's a better link to create an account that will return the user back to this page
 * [ Create an account on this wiki]

A customized welcome new user page
But you don't have to return the newly signed-up user to the page that links to the create account form. You can set the  parameter to something more interesting, such as the next page "Now that you've created your account" in a tutorial, or "Welcome new user, now indicate your interests". The returnto can take the user to the next phase.

Here's a link to create an account that will "return" the user to a special welcome page
 * [ create an account on this wiki and be welcomed]

To avoid you actually creating a bunch of dummy accounts to see this in action, here's the same link that just goes to the login page.
 * [ login to this wiki and be welcomed]

Don't lose the parameter
There are many synonyms and equivalent pages for creating an account such as Special:CreateAccount. Many of them will lose the returnto parameter. When testing your link, make sure the user ends up on the create account form with the returnto parameter you provided.

hiding the link icon
creates a URL, so it shows with an hyperlink icon even though it's only linking to a special page on the same wiki. Many wikis have templates that avoid this by setting the  style on a parent tag.

returntoquery
There is another parameter, returntoquery, that works similarly. If the user is part-way through a the recent changes list and creates an account, clicking the Login / Create account links will pass a &returntoquery parameter to the form that contain the information to return him or her to the same page of the results. One use for this is mentioned below

Also login
As mentioned, the returnto and returntoquery parameters also work on login. If you think users with accounts might have need to login and you offer your own link in addition to the top right link, you can provide a returnto for this.

Disabling GettingStarted
On some wikis our GettingStarted extension provides a special new user experience when someone creates an account. As mentioned that provides a [← No thanks, return to the page I was reading] link that lets users get back to their flow. If you are certain you don't want the users who follow your call to action to create an account to see this at all, we are considering a noGS=1 parameter to disable GettingStarted so the user returns to your special landing page; so you would disable the appearance of GettingStarted with

Did your call to create an account work?
When you invite the user to create an account, it's useful to know if it was successful. The long-term payoff of someone becoming an active editor takes time to establish, but there's a way to know if someone created an account after following your "Call to action" link to do so. Extension:Campaigns logs successful account creation after someone follows a custom link to the create account form. If you think you have a good "flow" that involves users creating an account, contact the E3 team so we can provide the information necessary to track your link to create an account along with other account creation campaigns.

The major problem of this is the raw logging data is not available to you. We may be able to summarize the number of accounts created.

Offering a guided tour
Another extension we developed is GuidedTour. It can pop up "bite-sized" guides that step users through a process and point to elements on a page. If you take on the effort of designing a tour, you can trigger it on the return to your post-creation page by setting.

Caveats
Designing a successful onboarding flow is challenging!

You don't know most of your audience. You don't know how users will arrive at your page, you don't know what they want to do, you don't know their expectations. You can design the most perfect signup page for, say, second-year return attendees of the North American Dinosaur Society meeting and set the returnto to a special "Now you've created an account, let's collaborate on improving North American fossil pages", and yet most web users who arrive on this page will have no idea why they are there or what is going on.

The more information you provide, the less users read. There is a lot to learn to edit wiki pages, if you give it all to users at once they will absorb nothing. Your wiki probably already has a tutorial and an introduction and a help for new users, you may as well point newly-registered users to them and collaborate on improving those rather than trying to re-summarize everything.

You can ask users to do something, but it won't be what you expect. If you invite new users to upload a picture of a nearby fossil, they will upload a mobile phone photo of themselves. If you invite new users to say something on their talk page about their archaeology background, they will praise Justin Bieber.

Despite all these caveats, it's still very helpful to think about how you want users to proceed before and after creating an account. Share your experiences!

Summary
landing page -> user clicks Call to Action to create account (track a campaign) -> successful creation -> "return" to newly-registered user page (show a guided tour)