[WikiEN-l] The story of an article

[William Pietri]

On 01/02/2010 03:25 PM, altally wrote:
> Yes, it's not that difficult to create an account and wait a few days is it?

My general rule of thumb is that you lose 20% of participants for each 
click you add to a flow. It varies a lot by circumstance, but the 
principle has been proven over and over: the harder you make something, 
the fewer people do it. The falloff is rapid.

In this case, I'd expect creating an account and waiting 3 days to lose 
50-90% of the contributions we'd get with an unimpeded flow. (To what 
extent we value or want those contributions is a different question; I'm 
just talking about raw user actions.)

Generally when people make statements like yours, they're relying on 
their personal intuition for how hard something is. Given that we're 
experts, our personal intuitions for that will be way off from what 
novice users experience. One of the biggest steps forward in software in 
the last decade or so has been learning that lesson and taking usability 
seriously.

The best way to answer a question like yours is to measure. The second 
best way is to assume that users are trying to accomplish the task while 
sleep deprived and working from the back of a truck with stiff shocks 
while simultaneously trying to pacify a 9-month-old baby.

Those with more interest in the topic might start with these articles:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010204.html
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030825.html

William