Remove hurdle of creating an account

[nicolas-raoul]

Google Play statistics suggests that a lot of people uninstall the app just after installing it.
I suspect that the biggest blocker is the login screen. Most people probably give up at that step.

Proposed solution: Allow people to browse Commons, and even upload pictures, without the hurdle of choosing a username and password.

The app could show: Log in with existing account / Create an account / Continue without an account

"Continue without an account" would actually create a random name and password, and store them in the app's local database.
Uninstalling the app would mean the account is lost forever. Or we could have a small dialog that shows the username/password that have been created.

I am not sure whether all of this is possible (for instance account creation might require solving a captcha which might be difficult to make the user solve), but it might be worth considering.

[knight-shade]

@nicolas-raoul Smart Lock might be just the right thing for this AFAIK.
https://developers.google.com/identity/smartlock-passwords/case-studies
What do you think @maskaravivek , @neslihanturan , @misaochan ?

[misaochan]

I agree with allowing the user to browse Commons and view Nearby without having to be logged in.

A few concerns though:

• I suspect doing this will require quite a thorough overhaul of many parts of the codebase? AFAIK our current (partially legacy).code is built on the assumption that the user is logged in. It will likely be a much larger task than it seems on the surface.
• I'm not sure if allowing users to upload with throwaway accounts will be a popular addition from the perspective of Commons patrollers :)
• Not sure if Smart Lock is compatible with WMF privacy policies

[nicolas-raoul]

As tipped by @sivaraam we should probably do without the login screen, and directly show featured images and browsing to the user.

Then when the user tries to upload a picture we should popup the login screen.
We could also have a "Login" item in the navigation menu for people who want to login without uploading an image.

[ujjwalagrawal17]

@nicolas-raoul @misaochan @neslihanturan @maskaravivek
The order in which I think skip feature should work is Welcome Screen will come in first run after that everytime explore activity will come if user is logged in or not. The drawer menu will changed if user is not logged in

[neslihanturan]

My opinion:
After welcome screen, Explore screen should come if user is not logged in. Otherwise (if user is logged in), Main screen (which will be Upload and Nearby soon) should be visible. Since the main function of our app is uploading.

[nicolas-raoul]

Like Nes, I am in favour of keeping an upload-related activity (currently "My Uploads") as the default activity for logged-in users.
Everyone else what is your opinion?

[maskaravivek]

I tried to conduct an informal survey at Wikimania to understand what would they like to see as soon as they enter the app. The opinions were divided, with many of the people wanting My Uploads activity as their home activity and many others were hoping for some explore commons feature(For them seeing their own uploads was not very useful). The sample space here is 15-20 people.

Given this dichotomy, we might consider giving this option to the users themselves. They could set the default landing page in settings. If Settings doesn't seem appropriate for this we can probably continue having My Uploads as the default activity for logged-in users as many people do find it useful. Personally, I as a user who doesn't upload many pictures would love to explore pictures uploaded by others.

[sivaraam]

If Settings doesn't seem appropriate for this we can probably continue having My Uploads as the default activity for logged-in users as many people do find it useful.

I think giving the option to the user would result in us opening up the pandora box. It might very likely cause unwanted issues in the upcoming days.

Personally, I as a user who doesn't upload many pictures would love to explore pictures uploaded by others.

Me too (regardless of whether I'm not logged in/not).

I don't think @neslihanturan's statement "Since the main function of our app is uploading." would hold once the browsing and Explore feature have been added to the app. I anticipate a lot of users would be using the app for browsing. So, the app wouldn't be upload only anymore. Anyways, that's an anticipation!

To be honest, being a very in-frequent Commons app uploader: I never found the usefulness of the contributions screen! It shows the images I've uploaded which might be useful. But I don't think it's as useful as the browsing or Explore feature (I'm not even able to download the images I upload! #1216). That's me, anyway.

That said, I would be in favor of the app choosing the app the main screen rather than letting the user. It would be nice if we could have a survey with a wider audience. 15-20 people seems too low. The results are quite likely to vary for a wider audience.

[nicolas-raoul]

I believe we should avoid proposing options unless really necessary, because:

• It makes important options less visible
• It multiplies the possibilities of bugs
• It makes testing (and trying to reproduce crashes) take more time

I asked our Facebook community to comment here.

[misaochan]

To answer @ujjwalagrawal17 's question specifically, I personally think that the best way to implement this for the time being is to:
(1) display tutorial first, always, then
(2) display login screen with a prominent option to "proceed without logging in". If they decide to do that, then
(3a) we can display the browse activity as the main screen, otherwise
(3b) if they login, we proceed to uploads as normal

This allows the feature to be implemented without needing us to make a decision so soon about whether to switch browse to the main screen for everyone or not. Some people strongly prefer being able to view their uploads immediately after every upload (AFAIK making browse the main activity would make users return to that after every upload as well, not just at the start, unless we want to devise a more complex activity flow). I personally am one of those people, as I want to see whether my last upload succeeded, what my last few uploads were so I don't repeat them (I tend to be forgetful, lol), and to jog my memory about what I have not uploaded yet.