Force iOS App Users to Create an Account or not?
Interested in people's thoughts here and any data if you have it.
My app is OnTrac. Our goal is to simplify the process of achieving life goals by automating progress tracking, and by providing a pre-made SMART goal template and actionable plan.
My team is starting the build out for the MVP, and we had a discussion today as to whether or not we should force the user to create an account as part of the on-boarding process.
My developer said he thinks its better to create as little friction as possible, but I feel having their e-mail address is important to walk them through some of the important steps of the set up process to get maximum value.
Thoughts?
I'm an iOS developer and have talked with psychologists about apps like this in the past. They said that people who use life goal trackers often are dealing with very private and confidential issues (e.g., alcoholism, anxiety, depression) etc. So I think a significant percent of users may be 'scared' to hand over any data that makes them feel less than anonymous.
Perhaps you can A/B test it if you are using something like Firebase. You can push half your new users to a flow without email addresses and the other to email addresses and see what your customer drop off stats look like?
Probably not a bad idea. Unfortunately, probably not feasible for MVP. @CruuCrew, if you're open to it, I'd love to connect off line and pick your brain a little more on your comment. I had a some customer discovery conversations with some of demo users at least one said he was in recovery, but he didn't seem to have any issues with the tracking. In fact, it was thing he really liked about it.
@xman1976 Connecting off line sounds great. I just left my email in the chat box of your website. Or if you like you can leave your email on my website: cruu.io
It depends on how much the perceived value is you can communicate at first app start. Typically large platforms like Pinterest, Instagram & co don't have a problem. People are pulled in no matter what it takes. With more unknown projects it's harder.
One suggestion I can make is to offer a demo mode (for a couple of minutes):
First app screen contains to actions:
"Signup" -> Signup with email, password
"Try out shortly" -> Demo Mode
@felix84 thanks a lot for your feedback. That's actually a great suggestion except instead, what I might do is create a read-only demo account with data populated. I think we can demonstrate the value proposition in that manner. Thanks a lot!
@xman1976 thanks for liking my post on how to hire a coder!
@CruuCrew you got it!