When new user come to web app, what is better: give him possibility to save data to local storage or prompt him to login to demo account?

Question

I have an app that saves user input to server side database. In order to be able to use such app user usually must create an account first.

I want to give him possibility to try app without creating account. (Is it right thing to do, by the way?) I see two approaches:

1. Allow user to save data locally to browser local storage and periodically prompt him to create account. When he will create account and login, I will copy all his saved data to server.
2. Prompt him to login to demo account, that can be done just in one click.

Which approach you think the better? Any other? Thanks.

Answer 1

The best user experience is the user just uses the app without performing any other additional unrelated task like creating an account, logging in or choosing to save locally.

So perhaps allow the user to use the app in demo mode from the get go, and store anything they create on your server (there are still ways you can create temporary accounts that uniquely link the device to your database) but inform the user upfront via messaging that they are in demo mode and that there are some additional benefits if they create an account. At the point the user decides they want the app they can now go through the create account process.

You can implement an on-boarding process when they first use the app, which introduces the user to features and tells the user they can use the demo mode but get extra stuff if they sign up. https://uxmag.com/articles/onboarding-designing-welcoming-first-experiences