Change notification defaults to be more sensible
Closed this issue · 3 comments
The default notification settings currently favour web notifications over email ones, which makes sense from a perspective of not emailing without permission, but leads to problems when people do not realise that the Notification Settings page exists. It would also be ideal for new users to be sent the newsletter immediately.
As such, I propose that new newsletters and messages default to Full Email (email immediately on a new newsletter being published) and Summary Email (email a summary each day) respectively.
Implementation notes and questions:
- This is really easy to implement, just set the defaults in https://github.com/WarwickTabletop/tgrsite/blob/main/notifications/models.py#L55.
- Do we need to ask for permission from new users in order to set these defaults?
- Should newsletters have a more prominent unsubscribe button? (Currently it's right at the bottom of a very long email. This is the case for the rest of our emails, but they tend to be shorter so it's less out of the way.)
- Can we make notification settings more prominent? It could be included in the tutorial, but also that involves the user reading something (which is a fairly large ask). One thing I've been considering (separate to this) is redirecting to the new user's profile on signup and making the Edit Profile button more prominent (just above the Achievements list) so that users are more likely to add their name/pronouns/Discord. Could we have a Notification Settings button there also?
After some discussion, we can make an action plan for implementing this.
So, I've mentioned my stance before, but I am very much not in favour of signing up people to emails by default. Nothing leaves a bad taste in my mouth more than if the first thing I have to do after signing up is dig through the settings to turn of the emails they send. When this last was brought up, I implemented a feature where after signing up it redirected you to a page that let you sign up to the newsletter in one click, but this never really worked due to the setting allowing a description/advert pitch being left blank. (I did ask Ares for the copy a couple of times, but understandably they were very busy and never got round to it). This was removed when the tutorial was added.
One compromise I did come to while thinking it over last night was a dropdown in the signup page that gave you a few notification profiles so that people could opt in (e.g. None, Newsletter Only, Balanced, Everything), with a note that they can customise it in their settings once they signup. I wouldn't make it a checkbox, as people tend to click those on autopilot assuming its a t&c button.
This feels like it strikes the balance of allowing people to easily sign up to emails, without forcing those of them who don't like emails to dig through the settings on first sign up.
Putting a link in the profile page is, however, a very good idea and should probably be implemented regardless of how the other questions end up being answered.
I'd also be hesitant to move the in-email unsubscribe link. For better or worse, that has become the industry standard location for it, and moving it is likely to cause more confusion than it solves.
Action plan:
- More clear options for notifications at signup.
- Redirect to profile when signing up.
- Make "Edit Profile" and "Notification Settings" real clear on profile page. (Maybe a tooltip for notification settings?)
- Update tutorial to highlight that you can get emails.