Start
Try before sign-up
Effort: High
What to notice
People can use the real feature once before the sign-up button.
How to build it
- Make the core feature usable once without an account.
- Offer sign-up as the way to save the result.
- Let people see the result right away without signing up.
Measure
- Main metric
- Sign-up rate after trying
- Guardrail
- Trial cost and abuse
When it backfires
Threatening to delete the result unless people register exploits loss aversion.
Theory behind it
Reciprocity
Receiving something makes people want to give back.
Well supported
IKEA effect
Things people build themselves feel more valuable than the same things made by others.
Limited evidence
Fogg Behavior Model (B=MAP)
A behavior happens when motivation, ability, and a prompt meet at the same moment.
Practitioner framework
Playable demos
Try the same mechanism in a playable demo.