Recently my classmates and I propose a game app for car buyers as COM597: Interactive Design final project. The process requests users to log in with Facebook account in order to access rich social graph and profile data so the application can recommend their match car based on that. Signing with Facebook account is already become a login standard across the apps. A number of major partners have already implemented the option include Groupon, Yelp and social gaming giant Zynga.By logging with Facebook account, users are able to share information, sync data, challenge friends to games. It’s also a great social network power for business that logging in with Faceook make users to see “like” from their friends or interact with them.
However, we are a little bit worried about the idea of forcing users to log in with Facebook. Through my interview, most people, no matter of their age, they all feel negative with Facebook log in. They concern about if the app will post something on their Facebook wall. One of my friends even mentioned, “Whenever an app asks me to sign in with Facebook or Twitter, I just delete it.”
The worse cases are some apps ask user to sign up with social media before showing a clue about what the app is. For example, pheed and Tumbler are both user-generated website/ apps. Pheed only allows users to sign up or leave. Compared to pheed, I definitely think Tumbler with a picture-savvy glance of the contents on Homepage provides a better user experience.
In the supporting side, one user indicated that she had a hard time remembering what the account she created especially after clearing cookies. She considers log in with social media as a very convenient way to avoid those inconvenience. In some MCDM classes, we talked about having at least two facebook, twitter, and/ or Google accounts. One is used primarily for networking and staying in touch with friends and one that is a complete garbage one you never touch. That way the apps won’t get any data from you. Many people already have a garbage email address that they use purely to sign up. Struggling with marketer and user perspectives, I have no conclusions of the pros and cons so far.
