{"id":537,"date":"2010-04-06T11:01:31","date_gmt":"2010-04-06T10:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/?p=537"},"modified":"2010-04-06T11:01:31","modified_gmt":"2010-04-06T10:01:31","slug":"when-to-ask-for-user-details","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/when-to-ask-for-user-details","title":{"rendered":"When to ask for user details"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When should you ask for information from your users? I recently came across two online apps that illustrate the right and the wrong way to resolve this question. <\/p>\n<p>Firstly, we have <a onclick=\"javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('\/outgoing\/www.mockflow.com\/');\"  href=\"http:\/\/www.mockflow.com\/\">Mockflow<\/a>, an online wireframe tool. Includes versioning, collaboration etc.<br \/>\n<a onclick=\"javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('\/downloads\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.41.18.png');\"  href=\"http:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.41.18.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.41.18-300x261.png\" alt=\"home page for mockflow\" title=\"Mock Flow homepage\" width=\"300\" height=\"261\" class=\"center size-medium wp-image-539\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.41.18-300x261.png 300w, https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.41.18-150x130.png 150w, https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.41.18.png 828w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>So, if you&#8217;re wondering what this application&#8217;s like, how do we find out? They have a pretty good video on the homepage, that&#8217;s nice enough. And if you take the tour, you can see some screen shots that outline some of the functions of the site. Very nice.<\/p>\n<p>But if I want to try it out, what do I get?<\/p>\n<p><a onclick=\"javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('\/downloads\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.41.47.png');\"  href=\"http:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.41.47.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.41.47-300x266.png\" alt=\"The next stage in the user flow for mockflow\" title=\"Mockflow signup page\" width=\"300\" height=\"266\" class=\"center size-medium wp-image-538\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.41.47-300x266.png 300w, https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.41.47-150x133.png 150w, https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.41.47.png 836w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Hooray, another sign up form. Those never get dull. <\/p>\n<p>Contrast this with <a onclick=\"javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('\/outgoing\/dabbleboard.com\/');\"  href=\"http:\/\/dabbleboard.com\/\">Dabbleboard<\/a>, another online collaborative working tool. Here&#8217;s the homepage:<\/p>\n<p><a onclick=\"javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('\/downloads\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.40.30.png');\"  href=\"http:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.40.30.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.40.30-300x227.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"dabble home page\" width=\"300\" height=\"227\" class=\"center size-medium wp-image-541\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.40.30-300x227.png 300w, https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.40.30-150x113.png 150w, https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.40.30-1024x777.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.40.30.png 1050w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>But how do you find out what it&#8217;s really like to use? Well, all you have to do is go to http:\/\/www.dabbleboard.com\/draw, and you can start right away.<br \/>\n<a onclick=\"javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('\/downloads\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.40.39.png');\"  href=\"http:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.40.39.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.40.39-300x168.png\" alt=\"The initial page for dabble\" title=\"dabble draw page\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" class=\"center size-medium wp-image-540\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.40.39-300x168.png 300w, https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.40.39-150x84.png 150w, https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.40.39-1024x573.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Screen-shot-2010-03-31-at-16.40.39.png 1324w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Simple, and in terms of engaging your visitors, it&#8217;s much more better than asking for an email and a password. Of course, you do need to sign up to dabble board if you want to save your work; but by that point users will be much more committed to the application than someone who has read a landing page and watched a video.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When should you ask for information from your users? I recently came across two online apps that illustrate the right and the wrong way to resolve this question. Firstly, we have Mockflow, an online wireframe tool. Includes versioning, collaboration etc. So, if you&#8217;re wondering what this application&#8217;s like, how do we find out? They have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":552,"href":"https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537\/revisions\/552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.setfiremedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}