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I am making a Free Mobile App - where user's can find images by categories, and rate them. I do not need to know which user rated what image.

So, Should i make user's login to the app?

If, i force user's to login:
- The benefit is that i will have every user's email id (although for now i do not know what to do with it)
- Lesser people may use my app.

If, i do not for user to login:
- I will not know who is using my app.
- But larger number of users will use my app.

So, should i or should i not - force users to login to the app?

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    What benefit is there to the user for registering / logging in?
    – JonW ♦
    Feb 24, 2015 at 17:09
  • "The benefit is that i will have every user's email id" I i.e would know who the user is, which may or may not be useful in future.
    – Jasper
    Feb 24, 2015 at 17:10
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    No, I mean if I were a user of this app, what would I get out of being registered? This is a User experience Q&A site not a Business experience one. I'm assuming there is some incentive for users to register for this app, other than just deciding to hand over their email address. Do they get access to new features?
    – JonW ♦
    Feb 24, 2015 at 17:16
  • Logged in user's can possibly have their history saved (but it is not a important feature) - otherwise nothing else is tied to logged in user at present. I can make login really simple like via a FaceBook or Twitter Login button.
    – Jasper
    Feb 24, 2015 at 17:35
  • Wholeheartedly agree with @JonW. Based on the information you've given here: No. You aren't providing any extra value to your users that would warrant creating a profile or storing their data. Logging in would just be an extra step that would cause some potential users to drop off.
    – Mark Hazlewood
    Feb 24, 2015 at 17:48

2 Answers 2

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You shouldn't.

Login screens are barriers and common exits points, so in this case it's a big user counter-goal.

You have said explicitly that you are not sure what to do with the emails, so clearly there isn't at the moment any related business goals.

If I follow your line of thinking, one can ask why not asking for other details (age, gender, favourite colour) - all might have some use.

In general, these sort of decisions should be based on gain/loss analysis. So, if people really want to use your app, your conversion funnel won't be dramatically affected. But given there is not obvious gain at the moment, seems to me that by asking users to login it's a clearcut lose situation.

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As your mobile app is FREE so don't go for a login screen rather when user rate any image you could ask for user email id with a feedback for the app so if user is willing then he/she would provide you the details else just keep popping but keep a button "Don't show again" so if user doesn't want to provide detail ever then user would expect that the alert shouldn't come again and again.

Also in your app you could provide a profile screen where user could provide basic information and you could use it rather-less of email id such as name you could use for reference that who is using your app.

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  • How would i know how many people are using my app - if i do not force a login? So essentially, i am looking at some stats too .. also wondering if people take the app less seriously if you do not ask for login (which could even be a simple FaceBook login button) - just some thoughts
    – Jasper
    Feb 25, 2015 at 6:00
  • For stats you could check out the downloading rate of your app and for checking out the seriousness of user you could do show/ask user to provide email id (as told earlier) or even fb login screen will be good (fb login is better). Also profile screen with basic info will provide you some info of user (but should not be mandatory)
    – nikhil84
    Feb 25, 2015 at 6:05
  • There are other ways to do analytic tracking (though that's an entirely different topic) that don't explicitly require user login, but still can fairly accurately tell you number of unique users (think: originating IP address, user agent/handset identifiers, etc).
    – gregmac
    Feb 25, 2015 at 6:23
  • Yes, total agreement on that analytic tracking. So, if you don't want to go this way then you could go for fb login as people are more familiar with it and you goal will be achieved along with this you could ask for feedback for your app (a different screen).
    – nikhil84
    Feb 25, 2015 at 7:05

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