Settings Checklist For New Sign-ups
Friday, October 30th, 2009
Sign up and Set off!
(WORLD) As part of our process of travelling around, enthusing and empowering people to step in to social spaces, we find ourselves continually reminding users to explore the settings of the accounts they sign up to.
If the big functions are the marketing departments dream features, the Settings house the developers gems. Essential things you might not know you want, but once discovered, you’ll miss them if they were ever taken away.
One of the reasons I’m sure people struggle to become familiar with this area is due to the shear number of names it is referred to. Expect to find it under; Settings, Options, Tools, My Account, Profile and many others. Once discovered it can reveal a whole host of features and options to make using that service more interesting and help me decide if I’m going to use it in future.
Here’s some of the key features I look for immediately after signing up:
1: Can I turn off notifications?
The above image is from the settings panel of Yammer.
This is normally the first place I head. Rarely do I want to hear about other products and services or email from similar companies with similar products or services. Also, if it’s a service I plan on checking regularly for the first few days / weeks, notifications of messages, friend requests, or any other service reminders will be unnecessary. However a monthly email from a company serves as a good reminder that a) I have an account with a particular service, which I want to utilise, and b) that I don’t have time right now, but the gentle nudge reminds me each month to get back in there and have a go! Notifications aren’t all bad, just make sure you check them out and select what you do and don’t want.
2: Can I operate privately?
The above image is from the settings panel of Blogger.
Clients love this feature, and so do we. Not only does it allow people practice their tone of voice and communication skills, and build up a few information items before the account is public, it means users can take their time to customise the layout how they wish first.
Privacy normally isn’t a problem if the service relies on having lots of friends to use, unless you’ve linked up your email accounts on sign up, usually no-one will know you are there but you. Words to look for are ‘privacy’ or ‘hide’ or ‘visibility’, it can be under a number of different names, but all produces the same outcome. Also beware that sites may promote you on their homepage, driving visitors your way almost immediately after sign up—be sure to deselect that option if you don’t want it.
3: Can I invite more people? And can I control the access of those invitees?
The above image is from the settings panel of PBWorks.
If service uses collaboration tools, do my invites have to sign up as well? Once my invited contributors are in, can I retain admin rights and assign them authoritative roles? This approach shouldn’t be seen as your attempt to control contributors, many people will prefer less options, so their use of the service is easier and they don’t make any accidental errors on that account. Also unless you’re working on your own, you’ll be with others or a team of people in the company. If you’re off work ill or have too many other things to do, lightening your load to a colleague is a bonus, and it’s obviously better if you don’t have to keep emailing usernames and passwords around the office!
4: Can I change my default email address?
The above image is from the settings panel of WordPress.
Sometimes you may sign up an account whilst at home, and don’t have access to a work email address to confirm logins etc. So it is vital that you can either add more email addresses to that account and remove ones you don’t want to use. This is also a requirement when transferring accounts on to other colleagues. Keeping uniform logins and email addresses across social spaces cuts down on time and communication issues later—so make sure the service you’ve signed up to is as flexible as you need it to be.
5: Can I export my content?
The above image is from the More Actions menu of Google Docs.
A lot of services online will create many ways for you to add your content, but only offer a couple of ways to get it back out again: download or export. Download normally refers to individual items of content, whilst export can deal with lots, and often all of your content. Check for that feature in your account settings early on, if it doesn’t exist, be wary of how much you rely on the service because your hard work could become trapped. If it is, all is not lost, contact the company and explain your situation, they may be able to help with a database export, If companies are ceasing trading it is common for them to make your content available to download / export, failing that, turn to your trusty RSS feeds if you have access to it.
6: Can I import my existing content easily?
The above image is from the settings panel of Evernote.
Only if I am able to export my content, I am more than happy to import it. Many sites allow you to import your contacts to build up a friends list, but what about all my content? Can I connect directly to my Flickr profile? Can I pull in my blog post? Can I utilise my RSS feeds on other sites? Using these methods can really get your space off the ground and operating just as you wish with little effort. Be sure to search for this feature, and request it, if it isn’t available. Looking for a ‘code view’ or ‘html’ button on your posting window can save you time by pasting entire pages of your website source code into a service. Would you like that option? You may have it, click all those buttons, each one is there for a good reason.
7: Can I delete my content / Profile?
The above image is from the settings panel of Twitter.
Just as important as signing up, is the ability to ‘sign off’, permanently. What happens to my profile and content? Is it deleted? Or does it go into storage? Can I reactivate it again? Does my content return? If you delete your account, does it free up that username for someone else to use? Or is it gone forever, even if you want it back? For this reason it is good to sign up with an account you don’t want first, and test out its’ deletion process. If it all works well for you, go back and sign up the account you really need.
That’s my list and some good guidelines to look out for upon signing up to a new services. Most of these questions should be answered in the websites’ FAQs, so look there first before signing up to anything important.
Have I missed something? Have you got frustrated at a service for annoying emails or restrictions on your content? Let me know in the comments.
