Facebook Privacy Tip: How to Install Apps that Force Sharing without Sharing Anything to Your Friends

Posted on May 9, 2012 by teds

It starts off so innocently… you’re on Facebook ~~stalking~~ “browsing” a friend’s wall when you notice an interesting link of an article, photo, video or whatever. You click it to dive in but are interrupted not by some meaningless ad but by a Facebook privacy prompt forcing you to assign all of your rights away in order to view it. Since you’ve seen this a hundred times you click ahead hardly reading a word and on to the link… which wasn’t that good anyways.

Weeks later you get a notice that a friend is mocking an article you read from the same site. Confused as to how they knew this you head to your wall only to find out all Fashion & Lifestyle blog post you’ve secretly been skimming over have been shared to everyone you know. Even your mom.

In fear you vow never to allow an app again — but then you see a photo and its funny cats — and you just have to say yes. So you click ok again…

What’s happening is “frinctionless sharing“… A genius idea (really, I mean it) from Facebook that was designed to help make sharing things you regularly use easier and less invasive. But as with so many good idea, the problem isn’t in they thought up but rather in how it was used.

There is a solution to stop this forever. And it takes just 2 extra clicks.

While sites can force you to Facebook connect in order to read their content, even require you to permit frinctionless sharing they can’t control who you share too. So next time you get a prompt like this follow the 3 steps below.

Example App Screen from HomeMint (who I think does sharing well)

Click on the drop down below the text “Who can see posts…“.
Then select “Only Me” from the options list (or limit posts to a list you’ve created)
Confirm the app and you’re good to go.

: Just 2 clicks and no one can see the application’s posts…. Easy, huh?

The app will still be able make posts (so you gain entrance) and you’ll still see them too… but no one else. Of course other settings like your info, posts, and friends may be exposed so consider those as well.

And as a marketer I do want to remind you that not all apps are bad:

Most of the time when you connect it’s because you want to do something and sharing that makes sense — so if you believe the company is going about it in a respectful way there’s no need to lock the app away in the corner (for example at giftery.me we give you the option before we share & let you remove it in a click after we share). After all frictionless sharing is about helping improve your experience and bring your friends in… but when it’s being done wrong, well, that’s when it’s time to change.

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A note to my regular blog readers: I realize this post is a departure from my normal insight straight to the other side of the table and I promise it won’t happen often. However as more companies have started to take “frinctionless sharing” as an invitation for forced & unannounced sharing I’ve found myself answering this question far too often.

Sufficient to say we should all strive to build tools that people feel comfortable adding in a way that’s transparent so they don’t feel the need to limit us.

5 Minute Usability Tip: Offer alternative payments to speed up checkout

Posted on November 26, 2008 by teds

If you’ve never used PayPal you’re quick becoming in the minority and with several other payment vendors from BillMeLater, a deferred payment credit solution, to Google checkout, 2 checkout and others alternative payment providers are only increasing in numbers yet most ecommerce sites still insist on taking direct payment only.
For those unfamiliar with alternative payment providers here’s the quick rundown. Basically a customer hits your site and shops in the same way they do today but when it gets to checkout they’re shipped off to another site either right after the cart [ideal] or at the payment page. Once they land on the alternative payment provider’s site they complete the transaction using an existing account or providing payment
So how does this improve your site’s usability? Speed. Well, speed and security. Tens of millions of people have accounts, active accounts, with alternative payment providers so for them paying you is as simple as typing in an email address, password and clicking confirm. No need to enter payment details again, no worrying about mistyping credit card numbers or even having the credit card handy. That’s fast. The other side benefit comes from having a trusted name taking money giving your site a better sense of security and reliability for the concerned user. Not only is there no need to enter a credit card number directly with a merchant while using a third payment provider but they may also be given protections against fraud which is great if you’re a smaller company without a strong brand. Third party payment providers give you a bigger name.
The great thing is that most third payment providers can be setup online without any upfront costs [from there end] and are fairly easy to integrate into shopping carts, accelerated payment systems, even subscription services. They also work much like merchant accounts giving you access to the funds immediately so there’s no wait to get paid while the customer gets the speed and reliability benefits they were looking for.

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5 Minute Usability Tip: Make drop downs default to the place people actually live.

Posted on November 18, 2008 by teds

There’s no doubt that the web is international but for most companies visitors come from just a handful of countries with a strong emphasis on one or two, like the US and Canada for a north American focused site. So why is it that thousands of forums show a list of every country in the world defaulting to Afghanistan (the first A in the list)? Sure it helps to be alphabetical but when a visitor has to scroll a list with over 200 entries to find a result that they and 70 or 80% of other users will select it’s a burden. While this field alone may not be enough to get them to bail it adds time to the process and feels… cold. You don’t know them, you aren’t acknowledging them and chances are they know there aren’t a lot of visitors from “Baker, Howland and Jarvis Islands” which shows up well before the US and Canada on most lists. And this doesn’t apply to just transactional sites trying to get people through a purchase funnel, lead gen sites, surveys, registration pages all need to streamline this field.
You don’t have to cut out countries to make it useful either. Simply take the top couple of locations (more if you have a lot of international traffic) and put them above the alpha list and again in the alpha list. This lets people quickly find their country 99% of the time while still providing a world of choices for your other, and by no means less important visitors.

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5 Minute Usability Tip: Don’t Make People Confirm to Complete

Posted on November 11, 2008 by teds

Here’s a simple no-brainer that applies to just about every website yet continues to be an issue I encounter more than one would seem possible. When you have a transactional system that creates accounts let people complete their transaction without requiring email approval. Yes it’s great to know the email address works and in some cases you may have to validate it after the transaction but think about the user experience… I come in, find something I want to sign up for, start signing up and am told to leave to check my email. If I use hotmail or another provider that may require launching a new browser and going off to login elsewhere with distractions galore. Maybe my email comes in every minute via outlook but I still have to sit around and wait. And guess what, during that wait time I’ve got other things to do and I bail.
It doesn’t matter if you’re selling widgets, collecting leads, letting people apply for jobs or signing up volunteers for an event. Your desire to validate data has to be secondary to the user’s ability to complete the task. Take the steps you need but be sure they never stop the user from reaching the goal.

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