Once upon a time...
During the good ol' days of the internet, things were simple. You used to enter an email and password and maybe confirm your email with an OTP sent to your mail that's it.
Fast-forward two years. We now have OAUTH signups for Google, Facebook, and Github, which enable users to sign up with one click (or two if they need to confirm with the Authentication provider), and that's it.
You may have also noticed that when using the sign-in options like Google, it doesn't matter most of the time if you use the signup page or the Login Page because The Website determines if you're an existing user in the Backend and lets you proceed as suited.
Now, why didn't the developers simply rely on the user to make an educated decision and use the appropriate page for Logging In / Signing Up?
If you love her, you don't let her go
As the internet grew bigger and bigger, the struggle for online presence stonked! Soon enough it didn't matter if you were a viable SaaS Startup or a Tech Giant like Google who just doesn't care. It all came down to the "Retention and Conversion Rate".
In simple terms, You don't want to lose a customer or drive away a potential user from our beautifully designed landing page.
Now, imagine this, A user named Jim is pretty chill and randomly browses the internet (Like most of the audience). When he came to your website for a service, he wants to have a taste of that fruit as quickly as possible. If you block his first experience with layers after layers of authentication and finally a paywall (You surely don't want to live in your mother's basement forever), he will just get frustrated and move on to the next site in a blink. Unfortunately, that second website offers a free trial without a signup (Also known as Guest Browsing).
In the chart above you can see how less of the audience actually signs up for your product unless they are blown away by your landing page.
That's why it is extremely important to make the onboarding process as painless as possible for the user.
5 Curated Tips from My Experience in UX
After years of fiddling around with highly complex User experiences, Simple Grandma-friendly Apps get way more traction in the long run. Here are some tips to improve the user experience of your Side hustle which will fail anyway!
1. Offer Guest Mode and Free Trials whenever Possible.
Companies from Nvdia to niche online media converters, all offer some free credits requiring no sign-ups. You should try that out too! Let me link some of the Basic 3rd Party services such as Firebase too help you get started!
Firebase Auth: You can easily use Firebase's Anonymous Auth to track users without needing to sign up and afterward convert them to permanent users in the least intrusive way!
LocalStorage + Cookie: You can store a user's browsing and progress information in their Browser. Beware that cookies can be deleted and the Local Storage of the browser can be cleaned resulting in an infinite free trial glitch
2. Offer OAuth Powered signups and Logins
Passwords are a pain in the butt and are less secure in the era of sophisticated phishing attacks. Offering users to sign up through their Google and other social accounts such as Facebook or Github can greatly enhance their user experience!
- You have multiple options to choose from when it comes to integrating OAuth. Some of them are [AUTH0, Free Tier, 25K Users], [Firebase Auth, Free Tier, 50K Users], [Supabase OAuth, Free Tier, 50K Users], [AuthJS, Free Library, Supports nearly all OAUTH Providers] , etc.
3. Don't drive away a user from the website unless absolutely necessary.
If a user or a potential customer wanders off from your website for Email Confirmation, Survey, Payments, etc, there's a higher chance that the user will not make it back to your app in the midst of the Attention-Hungry Dungeon of Internet Sales Funnels.
Here are a few libraries and services to help you with that:
SurveyJS: Add seamless forms to your website that return a well-structured JSON data.
Embedded Google Form: Want to chill? You can easily create and embed a google form in your website in Less than a minute!
Stripe's Embedded Checkout: White the most famous payment gateway, Stripe has their own Hosted Checkout feature, You can always embed that in your website for a seamless and non-intrusive checkout process
4. Less Click = More comfort for the user
I understand that you may have a groundbreaking app that has highly complex features. Yet your users are not dungeon masters. It's always a bad idea to Nest your most useful settings and options in the Dashboard or Navigation Menus.
5. Be a Guardian Angel, Guide them.
Not all your users are Tech-savvy. They won't know how to navigate through different parts of your app and if you don't get them hooked, they will just move to the next easier app. That is why while Adobe Photoshop is a beast, people still tend to prefer Canva for smaller tasks. Why? It's easier! That's why Guide them like a baby.
Here's a cool Javascript library that helps you to set up an initial tour for your audience. DriverJS (Give it a try, it's easy!)
Now you're ready to see your conversation rate go crazy! (Or slightly upwards) , It's in our best interest to make the user experience for our audience as smooth as possible. You give them easy, they give you their Credit Cards! (Just don't call them and ask their PIN)
If the article helped, Consider showing some love and a lot of constructive feedback! Cheers!
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