[Welcome to Sensei's Library!]

StartingPoints
ReferenceSection
About


Referenced by
KGSTheKiseidoGoSe...
KGSWishlist
KGSBeginnerSRoom
CompostHeap
WelcomeToKGS

Homepages
KGSUserSGuide

 

KGS First Time User Experience
    Keywords: Software

The intention of this page is to collect the experiences of people who just joined KGS quickly and easily, while it's still fresh. Any other feedback should be entered in KGS Wishlist. Advice and help in KGS User's Guide.

Sebastian: I just tried out KGS (in spite of my reservation about the License Agreement).

It's a great server! And easy to use. Some observations (my clent was about a week old and I ignored the warning to upgrade, so please excuse me if some of these are not up to date):

  • The client is much faster on my Win XP box than gGo, which saves my time and nerves especially at the beginning of a game.
  • I love the display of the scored stones at the end.
  • Password
    • I was confused because the password I entered when I logged on as guest was not the same that I had to use the second time.
    • I only had to log in a second time because I accidentally somehow logged me off (I think when I wanted to close a chat I must have closed the app.) If I had not done this, I'm afraid I might have lost my account because, as it states, it's only kept for 24 hours if you don't use it. This seems overly restrictive to me.[1]
  • I would like to
    • see open games (the bold lines) at the top of the games list on first use.
  • I thought I could not
    • enter a room (when I hit "Join" in the Room List dialog, I did not realize that it added it in the window in the background.
    • same with "Talk to ..."
    • easily get info about or chat with the players.[2]
  • I dislike not being able to use the keyboard for everything. Too mousy!

Discussion

[1]
Tristan: Your account name is only deleted if you don't log on within 24 hours of registering. Once you have made you first log on as a registered user, then the conditions become much less restrictive (i.e., you only need to log on once every 6 months to keep an account).

S: I know. The reason why I wrote this here is because it impacts the First Time user experience.

wms: Yes, users email about this sometimes. It does cause confusion. The problem is that often users mistype their email address, etc., so you end up with an account whose password has been lost. The 24 hour thing is just meant to clear these out quickly, so that the users can re-register with the same name (but hopefully a different email address!)

S: Oh, I see - it is actually meant to improve behaviour for beginners! I assume you wouldn't want to send the password that the user had entered because you're concerned about security? Hmm - how about if you enabled both passwords? You'd send out the mail with the backup password (with a little explanation), and when the user logs in the second time you disable the password that he didn't use. Would this be possible?

wms: When you press the "guest" button, the password input field is ignored. You can just leave it blank. I suppose I could let that become your password when you finally register, but I don't want to. The purpose of mailing the password is just to require that people receive email from KGS before they have a full registered account. There was trouble for a while, people (escapers mostly) would make a new registered account each time they connected. Forcing them to move email back and forth made setting up a new account enough work that it has cut this practice way, way, down, and also had the nice side effect that the email addresses on file on the server are accurate more often.

(Sebastian:) Good! Fighting escapers is indeed a worthy cause, so I am now convinced the functionality is best as it is. I only would propose the following cosmetic changes:

  • disable password entry for guest login
  • clarify the wording a bit, along the lines of:
    • A user doesn't really lose an account (besides, there isn't really much to be lost, it's basically just a name), but the name becomes available to anyone logging in as guest.
    • This is done for the user's conveniency, as described above.
    • You're only logged in as a guest now. If you want to use your account right away, you need to log off now.

Please bear with me if any of these are already stated. It's been a while since I first logged on, so I don't remember the exact wording.

[2] (discussion obsolete - moved to Compost Heap)



This is a copy of the living page "KGS First Time User Experience" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2003 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.