students-only and demo-mode in syncer lib

[Michiel de Jong]

hi!

I think we discussed this in the chat room but not yet on the mailing
list. At UX Camp, i had some interesting conversations about the
problems with our unusable login box (see todomvc.unhosted.5apps.com
for an example). Its problems are:

- it is unclear that this uninvasive UI element is such an important
step in the normal use flow
- it's good that we now have a choice between 'register' and 'sign
in'. but on first use, people will click 'register', and arrive at a
very confusing page with 15 links on it.
- unlike computer scientists, most people don't have tree-structured
minds, and so it's notoriously hard for them to backtrack. this is a
big problem in the BrowserID sign up as well. for us this means that
once people have registered some where, there is no way to explain to
them they can go back to the app, and use the app. they are only able
to go forward.

So two proposed changes:

- clearly show 'demo mode' when not logged in
- state 'this is only available to Dutch students', with a small link
to 'developer access'.


cheers,
Michiel.

[Melvin Carvalho]

On 6 June 2012 10:06, Michiel de Jong <mic...@unhosted.org> wrote:

hi!

I think we discussed this in the chat room but not yet on the mailing
list. At UX Camp, i had some interesting conversations about the
problems with our unusable login box (see todomvc.unhosted.5apps.com
for an example). Its problems are:

- it is unclear that this uninvasive UI element is such an important
step in the normal use flow
- it's good that we now have a choice between 'register' and 'sign
in'. but on first use, people will click 'register', and arrive at a
very confusing page with 15 links on it.

Not sure I saw register.
 

- unlike computer scientists, most people don't have tree-structured
minds, and so it's notoriously hard for them to backtrack. this is a
big problem in the BrowserID sign up as well. for us this means that
once people have registered some where, there is no way to explain to
them they can go back to the app, and use the app. they are only able
to go forward.

+1 even computer scientists must learn NOT to think hierarchically.  They hyperlink is a 'goto' which computer scientists are taught not to use, but it's the basis of the web.

 

So two proposed changes:

- clearly show 'demo mode' when not logged in
- state 'this is only available to Dutch students', with a small link
to 'developer access'.

I love the graphics of the new login box.  But must admit I find it slightly more confusing than earlier iterations.  The BrowserID flow I quite liked. 

Seems a reasonable idea to pilot this with dutch students, but is there an upgrade path to include the rest of the world using single sign on, or will it be just those that sign up?
 

cheers,
Michiel.

[Michiel de Jong]

Hugo, Jan and I had a long meeting about this. the idea is:

now
-----
Our goal for year two of our project, whose end we're approaching, is
to provide good tools for app developers.
https://github.com/unhosted/website/wiki/developer-focus . Right now
we're providing a library that's tailored at what the app developer
will want it to do, namely, conversion rate with preservation of
freedom. we concluded the best thing we can do right now is three
steps:

1) 'connect' button
2) three buttons: 'Dutch student', 'OwnCube', 'other'.
3a) if you clicked 'Dutch student', you get an "email address" login
box with a 'Go' button.
3b) if you clicked 'OwnCube' you get a "us...@owncube.com" login box
with a 'Go' button, plus a 'sign up' button which will take you to
OwnCube sign up, in a separate small window (so that it's easy to
close and get back to the app)
3c) if you clicked 'other' you get one 'OwnCube' button leading to
OwnCube signup and one 'developer access' link leading to our full
information page with options like pagekite, 5apps, running your own
ownCloud instance, developing your own software, etcetera.

future
--------
In year three, we will push the end-user base, so that developing for
remoteStorage becomes attractive. So a goal I formulated in the little
meeting we just had, would be to get something like 10,000 or 100,000
happy end-users logging in regularly with their remoteStorage. For
this, I want to develop one or more apps that can attract a large user
base, and "one size fits all" is then not a goal. It's then more
efficient to focus only on students and forget about OwnCube users.
Making an app for a specific audience is maybe not very "open", but i
do think it is necessary here for this specific goal (we talked about
http://telekommunisten.net/2012/05/09/privacy-moglen-ioerror-rp12/
yesterday at the Telekommunisten Stammtisch). So that would include
things like user interface design, marketing, branding, market
research, stuff that commercial startups do, and free software
projects usually fail at. So for that we discussed two proposals:

aimed at Dutch/European students
--------------------------------------------------
I would use a blocking login screen that says 'Dutch students only',
then an 'email address' login box with a 'Go' button, and a small link
to 'developer access'. Facebook started with 'harvard.edu email
addresses only' and then slowly added more and more universities with
'coming soon' roll out. I would probably even start at just one
university, and beta there until it works, then slowly open up to
other universities and then other countries. That way the app feels
more populated. Of course, since it's unhosted and free software and
totally non-commercial, anyone can use it, but the marketing efforts
wouldn't be aimed at them. it will also at the same time give identity
providers a reason to start providing remoteStorage for their users.

aimed at existing OwnCube users
-------------------------------------------------
we need to give them a storage-first flow so that they can launch apps
from within OwnCube (while still allowing them to go app-first with
us...@owncube.com). we should also convince the ownCloud dev community
to program less php and more client-side html5 and js.


Cheers,
Michiel

[Michiel de Jong]

On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 2:41 PM, Michiel de Jong <mic...@unhosted.org> wrote:
> 1) 'connect' button

maybe "connect your remote storage" (and then the full remote storage logo)