Research:Account creation UX/Logging

R:ACUX will use a mix of client- and server-generated events.

We will be relying on the standard clicktracking API for client events and on the event logger for server events. All event data will ultimately be parsed and available in the same format as key,value arrays in redis.

Identifiers

Bucket ID

acux_1: First iteration of ACUX, new design, no client-side form validation
control_1: Control group for first ACUX iteration, displaying default account creation landing page
acux_2: Second iteration of ACUX, new design without list of benefits, no client-side form validation
control_2: Control group for second ACUX iteration, displaying default account creation landing page

acux_3: Third iteration of ACUX (launched November 6), new design with client-side field validation and the list of benefits returns
control_3: Control group for third ACUX iteration, displaying default account creation landing page

Event ID

assignment: Assignment of anonymous user to one of the experimental conditions
impression: Impression of the account creation landing page
submit: Click on the "create account" button
impression_error: Impression of the landing page after a server-side error
submit_error: Click on the "create account" button after a server-side error
account_create: Successful account creation

Event naming scheme (client-side)

The general naming scheme for client-side events is the following

'ext.accountCreationUX@' + version + '-' + key

where version is the version number as set in the configuration file and key is the complete event string:

[bucket id]-[event id]

Full list events (client-side)

ACUX-1

acux_1-assignment
control_1-assignment
acux_1-impression
control_1-impression
acux_1-submit
control_1-submit

ACUX-2

acux_2-assignment
control_2-assignment
acux_2-impression
control_2-impression
acux_2-submit
control_2-submit
acux_2-impression_error
control_2-impression_error
acux_2-submit_error
control_2-submit_error

Additional data (client-side)

The log includes as additional data (as the last field of each log record) a pipe-separated string: mw_user_token|referral|user_input.

mw_user_token: anonymous token stored in the mediaWiki.user.id cookie
referral: referring page
user_input: user name posted upon submitting the form

Event log format (server-side)

The following is a sample log line for the account creation success event stored by the logger:

enwiki ?event_id=account_create
&user_id=XXXXXXX
&timestamp=1349293306
&username=YYYYYYY
&self_made=1
&creator_user_id=17630296
&by_email=0
&mw_user_token=J5f3LyQ8eKUniq5ARyJavIXybha1YgaE

Full list of events (server-side)

ACUX-1

acux_1-account_create
control_1-account_create

ACUX-2

acux_2-account_create
control_2-account_create

Additional data (server-side)

The log includes as additional data the following fields.

user_id: the user ID assigned to the new registered user
username: the username (as stored in MediaWiki's user table)
self_made: flag for regular (1) vs proxy-generated accounts (0)
creator_user_id: the user ID of the actual account creator, for proxy generated accounts
mw_user_token: anonymous token stored in the mediaWiki.user.id cookie
by_email: flag for new account info e-mailed to user (1) (should never be set for anonymous users creating their own accounts in the experiment)
userbuckets: user bucketing JSON structure, including the user's ACUX bucket