Talk:Account creation user experience

Previous ideas or stuff for the future

 * 1) Remove clutter of MediaWiki messages MediaWiki:Fancycaptcha and MediaWiki:email-help(-others) messages (ala ) and include mention of username policy
 * 2) Show asterisks next to required fields instead of optional
 * 3) Auto-focus the first field in the registration process
 * 4) Move CAPTCHA field below account creation fields
 * 5) Implement naming and password guidelines as tooltips on Field Names (or beside fields)
 * 6) Language tweaks with a very short word budget (list currently in Google Docs, needs to be wikified) Coordinate with Mobile team, as they will also be using tiny word budgets.
 * 7) Add benefits of signing up in place of removed User Policy
 * 8) Require email address to create an account, in the interests of increasing the "quality" of registrations over quantity

Additional variants

 * 1) Replace CAPTCHA with a honeypot. See also: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5309
 * 2) Utilize password recovery icon
 * 3) Login/signup detatched from Special page, probably via a test of mw:Extension:SignupAPI.
 * 4) Integrate create and login on the same page (Prerequisite is the above. This is not the design, but illustrates the idea: )
 * 5) Log in without leaving the page you're on - utilize modal window (Requires work on previous two tasks. Similar to this design.)
 * 6) Log In / Create Account order on every page
 * 7) Request password only once
 * 8) Allow for password unmask

Post account creation tests

 * 1) Adjust landing page (MediaWiki:Welcomecreation). Test at least two variants of text on that page aimed at driving certain actions, as opposed to simply dumping documentation on the lap of a new Wikipedian. This will be the next experiment once the registration process is sufficiently improved.
 * 2) Return user to the page they came from instead of taking them to a welcome landing page
 * 3) Add a 'return to previous page' link on the welcome landing page to take the user back to the page where they clicked the login button
 * 4) Ask people to do things upon completion (a whole world of microtasks available)


 * Form Features

The following is a laundry list of parameters of the account creation UI that can be modified:


 * message content.
 * captcha
 * form field dimensions
 * Honeypot vs CAPTCHA
 * email address field
 * form field autofocus
 * password unmask is availability
 * password is only entered once vs twice


 * Events on form completion (future iterations):
 * previous page link appear
 * Microtask suggestions


 * Other experiments where we haven't yet defined data needed (future iterations):
 * Login/signup detatched from Special page, probably via a test of mw:Extension:SignupAPI.
 * Integrate create and login on the same page (Prerequisite is the above. This is not the design, but illustrates the idea: [2])
 * Log in without leaving the page you're on - utilize modal window (Requires work on previous two tasks. Similar to this design.)

Browser matrix
We have discussed limiting the group of users with a test for browser compatibility, likely allowing the following set:


 * Firefox 12+
 * Chrome 19+
 * IE 8+
 * Opera 11.64+
 * Safari 534.47

Browsers that fail to meet the minimum requirements will probably be ineligible for the experiment (rather than letting them in possibly with degraded experience). Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   20:04, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Non en.wiki-specific stuff
I'm trying to understand what of the new mockup could affect all mediawiki, i.e. what are the changes to the core signup page. The blog post, commenting previous attempts, says: «basic limitations in the core functionality still plagued that project». If I see the mockup correctly, what we're basically doing is rearranging input fields and making fields and buttons larger/more visually appealing. The space on the right, already usable with the current system message, is made easier (?) to use, or anyway to be used by design, with many new messages which by default are taken by "account creation ads". On top of that, all en.wiki-specific warnings are removed on en.wiki. Am I missing something? --Nemo 23:21, 3 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Mostly, yes that's right. Note that, if possible within our time constraints, we want to redesign desktop login to match this new style and the mobile login, which is in beta. As for non-English specific stuff: one thing this mockup doesn't include are the alternative language links (Arabic Wikipedia as an example) on signup or login. Also note that it's not just English that adds cruft to the MediaWiki messages in the page, the Arabic example I used and many others do as well. Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   18:11, 5 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Sure, such warnings are used more or less on all wikis (although en.wiki has the nastiest ones), I was wondering how this project will affect/help them. Unless the test will prove that they're completely useless, some sort of replacement will be needed; and in any case wikis will want (and try) to adjust the text displayed in those boxes on the right, so this has IMHO to be taken into account too (at some point).
 * As for the language links, if you mean links to current wiki in another language, that will be taken care of by ULS so it's probably been wise not to include them in future developments. --Nemo 23:51, 5 November 2012 (UTC)


 * We're planning to make ULS a default feature, right? Daniel Friesen (Dantman) (talk) 00:46, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes. --Nemo 11:04, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * One possible replacement for the warnings, if necessary, are additional heuristics on the username validation. I wrote up some ideas at Account creation user experience/Usernames. Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   09:41, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you, I'll reply there. --Nemo 11:04, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Joining Wikipedia is "free"
This is an English-only issue, but I'm somewhat worried that the "Joining Wikipedia is free" text across the top is going to further confuse the "Wikipedia, the free-as-in-freedom encyclopedia" issue for new users. --Yair rand (talk) 13:02, 2 January 2013 (UTC)


 * The point was to experiment with pointing out that an account is in fact free-as-in-beer. This is a pretty classic technique for increasing conversions to registered users of a web service. Ultimately it is probably so obvious that it's not really a big help, but I certainly don't think it hurts. Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   20:20, 2 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't understand, is that the result of the experimentation or an assumption you made? Will you evaluate this choice in some way? --Nemo 08:17, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Become a part of the Wikipedia community
«Become a part of the Wikipedia community: Logging in means all your contributions are attributed to your username, and lets you connect with other Wikipedia contributors.» This wording is rather weird for many reasons: Ok, now I wrote this down even though I know it was a waste of time. I previously refrained because not only resistance is futile but I suppose there is some reasoning behind all this, but today I thought that maybe I could get at least a one-line response "yes we're aware of all this and have considered it in our tests and this is the best solution", if not a real explanation. As I already said ages ago, I hope the choice of the icons, headers, sublines etc. will be easy to customise when this will be implemented properly. --Nemo 08:17, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) you don't become a part of the community because
 * 2) * technically, by registering one doesn't join the community but the project,
 * 3) * socially, one enters GuestRole, not automatically CommunityMember,
 * 4) * by policy, being considered a member of the community often requires some number of edits and days to fully participate in discussions and votes (on en.wiki, even to create an article!),
 * 5) * finally, there are very active editors who never feel part of the wiki's community because they believe in ContentOverCommunity (this is the dominant position in our projects; most extreme opposers advocate for collaboration first, but never for community first);
 * 6) it's not true that you register to "connect" with other contributors because
 * 7) * you can edit their (or the article's) talk pages anyway, and it's very bad to give the impression that we are not an open system,
 * 8) * registering allows the others to contact you more easily and in general is a way to keep track of your contributions and their followups via the watchlist which is the main feature of registering.
 * We're actually going to ditch that iteration on the benefits entirely, because it's not very well suited to MediaWiki core and because testing suggested that its presence really made no discernable difference. The icons and text could of course be made easy to change on a local basis, but it seems like the wrong approach to roll out something we know most wikis that weren't English Wikipedia would need to customize. There's a whole list of ideas at /Benefits of signing up, and the one we are going to finish mocking up for the first permanent rollout is the one with the community stats. Those are much more easy to use and be meaningful across wikis, and the only Wikimedia project I can think of that doesn't care much about edits, content pages, and active editors is maybe Commons (which obviously cares more about uploads etc.). Anyway, I do appreciate the feedback, even if we often disagree. It's nice to have anyone paying attention. Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   08:55, 14 February 2013 (UTC)