Clarify first-time user signup flow [?]

[jlgoldman]

Acceptance Criteria

[stub]

Context

Comment from @jlgoldman :

If I've never used Affinity and I want to join a subgroup, I'm asked to enter my email, then I get sent to a login page. If I'm a first-time user, I'll need to sign up first, but I'll never see the tiny "Sign up" link at the very bottom. I suspect for most users in this case this will wind up just being a dead-end. If you know I'm new to Affinity, just tell me to do the right thing and create an account.

[aguestuser]

"I'm asked to enter my email, then I get sent to a login page."

^-- i'm confused. if i visit a page like groups/5/signup_forms/2/signups/new, after completing the form, i get logged in automatically and sent to my group's dashboard. do you get sent somewhere else?

assuming for now, that the second issue you raised is the main "issue" here, i completely agree. the "sign up" below is too small:

we have a (stub) issue for fixing this: #505

i'm hearing that playing that card is "must-have" for hard launch. is it also "must have" for soft launch?

[aguestuser]

ps: @tyesha this might be a great spot for some UX input! (as i'm pretty sure that the signup v. login issue is a settle problem among actual UX people. ;))

for reference, i think spotify handles this fairly well with their user flow, which starts by foregrounding the choice between signing up or logging in then proceeds to show only the details relevant to the path people have chosen (so that people don't hit a "dead end" as described below.) absent any input, i'd probably try to make something like this:

@jlgoldman , @mattewing @Matt-Holland : thoughts/input welcome!

(probably not playing this this week, so we can circle up to discuss optimal UX before i do.)

[jlgoldman]

Try this in an Incognito to simulate the experience of a first-time user. I get redirected to the Sign In page after entering my name, email, and zip.

This is presumably what every group member is going to see when invited by the group creator. So it should be very clear that if this is the first time they've ever seen Affinity, they need to create an account using either social login or a password.

At this point, you know for sure that they're new to Affinity, because you collected their email on the previous page. So the previous page should be a fork for logged-out users: if Affinity recognizes their email, send them to a page that says "Welcome back, please sign in". If Affinity does not recognize their email, send them to a page that introduces Affinity and asks them to create a new account.

[mattewing]

+1 to what Jonathan said :)

Austin: I think we could soft launch w/o this if we had to. But, we'd have to explain it to every user because it's confusing. So, it's not ideal. (but better than waiting another sprint cycle for the soft launch)

[aguestuser]

PS: @jlgoldman , @mattewing : apologies for the confusion in my original response. i had in mind the user flow from the groups/1/subgroups/new page (ie: the group creation flow), which logs in a user, etc. the user flow jonathan described does NOT do that and IS confusing.

as noted in the google doc where we were discussing this, it seems like there's a mini-epic about clarifying first-time use user flows that could use some considered thought.

i'm going to defer writing or playing any cards in that epic until @Matt-Holland is back (today!) and we can devote proper analysis and UX design work with @tyesha to thinking that through.

thanks though for the valuable user-testing! very on-point feedback all around! 👍

[Matt-Holland]

Solution option one: treat members just like Organizers -- ask for a password upon signup, and then log them in automatically.

Solution option two: DON't ask for a password, assume most members will never log in, and instead dump them on a public group page at the end. maybe send a welcome email.

[Matt-Holland]

NOTE FOR FUTURE: different groups will want different solutions, should / can this be feature flagged???

[aguestuser]

closing as duplicative of work scoped in #611, #612, #613, #614