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Why Facebook Connect Shouldn't Be Your Only Sign-in Option

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Re: Why Facebook Connect Shouldn't Be Your Only Sign-in Option

#51

Post by marshray »

djtriptych wrote: post #31
AznHisoka wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when IE was 95% market share?

This is actually a reasonable answer, having been around at that time. At one point, if it worked on IE it went out the door. Actually I know that "one point". It was when Mozilla completely destroyed their browser platform with the horribly broken Netscape 4. Everybody stopped using it immediately. Back then it was like "does it work on ie" and maybe "should we build an AOL presence?". AOL then = Facebook today. You…

if it worked on IE it went out the door

How many of those companies are still in business, relative to their competitors who chose instead to bet on cross-platform standards in the long term?

Re: Why Facebook Connect Shouldn't Be Your Only Sign-in Option

#52

Post by pavel_lishin »

tesseractive wrote: post #48
alttag wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too, because I don't have a FB account. I actively avoid one. I'm being excluded from marketing campaigns, contests, and give-aways because I don't trust FB with my privacy.

I have a pseudonymous Facebook account with no one friended and no personally identifying information that I keep around basically just for using services that expect me to have a Facebook account.

You should probably be running something like Ghostery as well.

Re: Why Facebook Connect Shouldn't Be Your Only Sign-in Option

#53

Post by pamelafox »

For my service at eatdifferent.com, I've offered both Facebook signup and email-password signup since starting the site, and I put a bigger emphasis on Facebook on the signup screen. Even with that, about 25% of my users use Facebook, and the rest go for email/password. I also sometimes unite an FB and email account so they can use either.

I think there's a danger in giving users too many options, because it's easy for a user to forget which one they used, but there's also a danger in only offering a 3rd party sign-in, as some users just won't be up for it. For me, FB + email is the happy medium.

But yes, there's a lot of little things to implement when you have your own user auth system. I'm using Flask, a microframework that doesn't have a user system built in, so I've had to code basic things like reset-password and change-password from scratch. Worth it, though.

Re: Why Facebook Connect Shouldn't Be Your Only Sign-in Option

#54

Post by antonlitvinenko »

nknight wrote: post #40
antonlitvinenko wrote: post #26

From user perspective having several sign-in options is a source of confusion: first day I sign in with Facebook... next day I come in and don't remember which service I've used to sign in with? And this time I try Twitter only to see none of my data. How do you guys solve that problem? I think, this might be even the bigger problem than having 20% or 30% "drop out" on sign up process.

Isn't the obvious 80% solution a separate cookie that just says "this browser last logged in using service X" that the server can use to give UI cues?

With single device - you're right... but this becomes really a problem when you expect your customers to use multiple devices: computers at home, at work, smartphone, iPad...

how would you suggest your customer which login to use the first time she tries to sign in on another device?

Re: Why Facebook Connect Shouldn't Be Your Only Sign-in Option

#55

Post by shawndrost »

Here's my empirical stance: I've seen great conversion rates on that screenshot, and I've never seen a compelling example of bumping conversion rates through adding a username/password option.

Conversely, at the last place I worked, offering both options was the #1 cause of customer support requests. People sign up through both paths, then ask why everything is fucked. We ended up dedicating a lot of resources to a crystal-clear UX to avoid this problem.

Finally, when someone signs up through Facebook, you're often able to offer them a better product, because people empirically respond really well to their friends' faces, and everything else that comes with fb. Facebook permissions also promote your business goals like woah.

I'm open to more information, but this article doesn't have any. "Giving users only one way to sign in and FB as the only option is going to turn off a large number of users"? I've reread that sentence several times and I can confidently state there are no numbers in it.

Re: Why Facebook Connect Shouldn't Be Your Only Sign-in Option

#56

Post by palish »

pamelafox wrote: post #53

For my service at eatdifferent.com, I've offered both Facebook signup and email-password signup since starting the site, and I put a bigger emphasis on Facebook on the signup screen. Even with that, about 25% of my users use Facebook, and the rest go for email/password. I also sometimes unite an FB and email account so they can use either. I think there's a danger in giving users too many options, because it's easy f…

Hi, just thought you'd be interested in hearing about my experience with eatdifferent.com. Please disregard this if it's unwelcome (sorry!) ... I figured website owners enjoy hearing first impressions, but this is kind of awkward. But on the off chance that it's useful:

Homepage: interesting concept. I like the clean design and the gigantic "start" button + "take a tour" option.

Next page: A little annoyed that I have to basically squint to see the alternative to Facebook signin. No, I don't want to join your social network.

Signup page: I'll admit, the number of fields to fill out gave me pause. I almost exited out. But I'll grudgingly give it a shot. (Specifically: you don't need my last name, it makes me feel like you want to sell my info. You don't need my location. You don't need my birthday, and the years starting with "1900, 1901, ..." makes me feel like you want to sell my info. You don't need my photo -- if I like your site, maybe I'll give one. But we just met. The lack of a "confirm password" box makes me slow down and carefully type my password, and makes me feel like closing the website. This is all happening in the span of about 3 seconds.)

Next page: Perfect; absolutely perfect. The defaults are spot-on, and the optional infotext (question mark buttons) is nice.

Next page: Hmm.... Reminders? I don't really want annoying reminders yet; I just want to see what your site is like. The lack of a 'skip this' button would make me close the site.

Next page: You want me to spam my friends. No... thanks.

Next page: We're at step 5. It's now gone from cute to annoying. No, I don't want to share my food logs with the world.

Done with the signup. Then you show me http://screencast.com/t/NXMzgOjjR50q ... it's not really clear what I should be doing next, or how it will benefit me. I think there's probably just too much raw text. Separately, each element is good -- "Prep your pantry", for example. And I like handy guides. But the sheer number of things I could be doing next makes me close the page and hope you don't spam me too much.

Apologies if this wasn't useful. I assume website owners like honest feedback, and understand that my viewpoint != the average person's. I have no idea whether your site is good or bad; I was just broadcasting my raw thoughtstream as I went. For example it might be a bad idea to cut the "invite friends" step, even if I am personally annoyed with it -- maybe it's valuable in practice. I don't know.

Best of luck to you!

Re: Why Facebook Connect Shouldn't Be Your Only Sign-in Option

#57

Post by AznHisoka »

marshray wrote: post #51
djtriptych wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually a reasonable answer, having been around at that time. At one point, if it worked on IE it went out the door. Actually I know that "one point". It was when Mozilla completely destroyed their browser platform with the horribly broken Netscape 4. Everybody stopped using it immediately. Back then it was like "does it work on ie" and maybe "should we build an AOL presence?". AOL then = Facebook today. You…

if it worked on IE it went out the door How many of those companies are still in business, relative to their competitors who chose instead to bet on cross-platform standards in the long term?

They had to worry about IE initially.. then when they made it big, they had the money/time/resources to focus on branching out. Today, to make it big you have to worry about a lot more platforms.. and that's only to get started. Sux!

Re: Why Facebook Connect Shouldn't Be Your Only Sign-in Option

#58

Post by palish »

Blocks8 wrote: post #36
SatvikBeri wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone run some A/B tests and gotten stats on how different subscription rates are with multiple log in options? I'm curious as to exactly how much it matters.

gtrot.com started with Facebook-Connect login only. We didn't allow any access into the site unless you created account. The primary reason for this was that we used Facebook data to show you where your friends lived, where they've been and allowed you to connect with them on gtrot (through Facebook) so there was no "empty room" feeling when you started. With our latest updates in November, we allowed a 'generic view…

Why not let users use a fake Facebook account until they're convinced your site is good?

Re: Why Facebook Connect Shouldn't Be Your Only Sign-in Option

#59

Post by djtriptych »

marshray wrote: post #51
djtriptych wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually a reasonable answer, having been around at that time. At one point, if it worked on IE it went out the door. Actually I know that "one point". It was when Mozilla completely destroyed their browser platform with the horribly broken Netscape 4. Everybody stopped using it immediately. Back then it was like "does it work on ie" and maybe "should we build an AOL presence?". AOL then = Facebook today. You…

if it worked on IE it went out the door How many of those companies are still in business, relative to their competitors who chose instead to bet on cross-platform standards in the long term?

If you were developing back then, you know there was a conscious choice between using REALLY microsoft-specific stuff like .htc modules, and just not worrying if your layout was perfect in Netscape 3. It was easy to not care for a while there.

If you're developing now, you know how much time you save just not worrying about layout in dying browsers.

Re: Why Facebook Connect Shouldn't Be Your Only Sign-in Option

#60

Post by k-mcgrady »

veyron wrote: post #38
nknight wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't, my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles don't, my best friend doesn't, several of my favorite past and present colleagues don't. There are times I really wonder where Facebook's massive userbase comes from, and how it can ever possibly occur to anyone, anywhere, under any circumstances, to make Facebook the sole login system for their web startup that otherwise has little or nothing to do with Facebook.

Given that there are ~ 300M americans and facebook has ~850M users, my guess is that most of their userbase is overseas (and oftentimes falling prey to the whole "americans use it, so I should also be using it" mentality)

For a long time Facebook wasn't available over seas. Facebook started with only US colleges, then high schools. It only opened up to people outside the US about 3 years ago I think so I would assume a large percentage of its user base is american.
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