Auth Spectrum & UX

A discussion on improving the logged-out experience

Current Model for User data

What do we know if user is logged in?
- User's Tree
- User's Memories
- User's Preferences
- User's Temple Names
- User's ...
What do we know if user is logged out?
- They are logged out
- Maybe what language they speak (if we even support it)

What Types of Users Visit FamilySearch?

	Logged Out	Logged In
No Account	Some Access	---
Has Account	Same ^^^	Great Experience
Acc W/ Large Tree	Same ^^^	Great
Acc W/ No Tree	Same ^^^	Poor, can be bad
Acc W/ Memories	Same ^^^	Great, can share
Acc W/ No Mem	Same ^^^	Ok, can still look
Acc W/ Temple Ops	Same ^^^	Great
Acc W/ No Temple	Same ^^^	Disappointing
Etc...	Same ^^^	Good

Right now, we treat
having no account
the same way as

being logged out

even though these are not the same thing

"The user can just create an account, it's FREE!"

What's it like creating an account?

Takes ~5min
Collect a lot of person info
Have to verify email

What is the experience like after creating an account?

	Logged Out	Logged In
Acc W/ No Tree	---	Poor, can be bad
Acc W/ No Mem	---	Ok, can still look
Acc W/ No Temple	---	Disappointing

Empty Tree
Only Instant-Names for Temple Opportunities
Empty everything else

Case Study

Pioneer Children's Memorial visit
10 June 2021

Logged In

Experience is great if you are logged in.

You can filter to see all the people you are related too at the memorial and feel a connection to your relatives that crossed the plains.

Logged In, but no Tree

Experience is not very great if you are a new user who has no tree.

Compound that with having just spent the last 20 min creating an account over a slow mobile connection and the experience goes from poor to disappointing.

What Might We Do?

Experience if they probably have a tree

Experience if they probably don't have a tree

Proposal: A new service

Keeps track how many users the device generally has
Determines if a private or shared device
If private, provides a profile of the probable user

Summarize the User for the Logged-out Experience

Logged in	Logged out
Who is in the user's tree?	How many generations?
What photos and memories does the user have?	Is the user familiar with the memories feature?
What records has the user attached to ancestors?	Does the user research and attach records (often / recently / etc) ?

When was the last time they logged in?
How often does the user log in?

What could the API look like?

import { useUser } from `@fs/zion-user`

// ...

const { signedIn, describe, ...user } = useUser()
const generations = useTreeGenerations(user)

useEffect(() => {
  if (signedIn && generations) {
    describe('tree.generations', generations.length)
  }
}, [signedIn, describe, generations])

import { useUser } from `@fs/zion-user`

// ...

const { signedIn, loading, probableUsers, ...user } = useUser()
const [ primaryDeviceUser ] = probableUsers

if (signedIn) return <SignedInExperience user={user}/>
else if (!loading) return <LoggedOutExperience probableUser={primaryDeviceUser}/>
return <NoticeLoading />

// ...

function LoggedOutExperience({ probableUser }) {
  return (
    <>
      {probableUser && (
        <div>We think the logged out user might have an account.</div>
      )}

      <div>The default logged out experience</div>

      {probableUser?.tree?.generations >= 4 && (
        <div>
          We also think the user has a rich enough tree to suggest 
          logging in will give them a feature they might want and 
          provide value to their experience.
        </div>
      )}
    </>
  )
}

Conclusion

We can and should improve the logged out experience
Knowing information about the user before they log in can help us tailor the experience (hyper-localize to the individual)
The technology to do so would not incur cost on our servers and would be as easy to implement as analytics

Authentication & UX

By Kyle West