Creating User Profiles with Self-Registration

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Creating User Profiles with Self-Registration

From the user's perspective, the first step in personalization is to obtain a username and password through the registration process. This step, which creates the personal profile later used for personalization, may occur the first time a customer makes a purchase from an online business. At that point, they are required to provide personal information to complete the transaction.

Profile creation may occur when a user requests premium content that is only available to registered users. For instance, a service called Bitpipe KnowledgeAlert serves as a clearinghouse for white papers and studies published by knowledge management vendors . Anonymous users may search and browse these papers, but they are required to create accounts and log in to download a paper. Bitpipe also uses that profile information to send email notification when new items are published based on the topics chosen by the user.

Let's look at another example. Users are required to create a personal profile in order to file an aircraft accident report with the National Transportation Safety Board in Washington, DC. Aircraft operators must file a report whenever an accident occurs to one of their aircraft, including minor incidents such as a flat tire on the runway or a dent in the wing from a luggage-handling vehicle. This solution replaces paper forms, which were printed from PDF files, filled out, and mailed to the NTSB. After the forms were received, an accident investigator had to enter the data by hand.

A new user clicks the link to register on the logon page (Figure 7.2). The personal profile page opens (Figure 7.3), which prompts the user to enter the minimum information necessary to create the account. You can always add to the profile later, and a long profile screen is daunting to new users. In this example, the user can choose his own password. You may want to specify the minimum password length to encourage stronger passwords. You can also have the system generate a password.

Figure 7.2. Logon Page

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Figure 7.3. Creating an Online Account

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After entering the requested information, the pilot clicks Submit. The system displays a message that the request is being processed and that an email will be sent to the new user (Figure 7.4).

Figure 7.4. Account Processing Notification

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Next, the system generates an email notification to the user containing a link to the NTSB site (Figure 7.5). This is created as a plain text message with an SMTP mail server. You should not assume that a customer's email system can handle formatting such as HTML or rich text.

Figure 7.5. Online Registration Email

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By following the link provided in the notification email, the user can log in to start filling out the accident report (Figure 7.6).

Figure 7.6. Login Screen for Account Activation

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You are likely to have a similar set of steps for account creation. Sometimes all you need to gather is a valid email address and the password chosen by the user. Be sure to check on the legal privacy implications of gathering personal information. If you were to compromise personal information provided by users, you would make your company a target of lawsuits and decrease customer satisfaction. The need to keep customer data safe underscores the importance of security on your site. See Chapter 6 for more details on how to secure your site. As always, don't put confidential information online unless absolutely necessary.

You should have a process for handling forgotten passwords. Some sites allow users to enter their email addresses and send them their passwords as email messages. Others provide a second path for authentication by prompting users to answer a question to identify themselves . Such sites ask users to answer a personal question, such as their place of birth or mother's maiden name , as part of registration. When a user clicks the " Forgot my password" link on the logon page (see Figure 7.2), he is asked to answer that question (Figure 7.7). If the same answer is provided as the user entered at registration, the system sends the password in an email. Sending the password in an email message provides an additional level of security, because it requires the requester to have access to the email account used during registration.

Figure 7.7. Question Asked and Answered

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You may want to provide a telephone number on your registration and logon pages to allow users to contact customer support. If they encounter problems trying to access personalized content, this may be your last chance to communicate with them.

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Building Portals, Intranets, and Corporate Web Sites Using Microsoft Servers
Building Portals, Intranets, and Corporate Web Sites Using Microsoft Servers
ISBN: 0321159632
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 164

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