Re: [Snowdrift-discuss] An opt-in we don't prefer could help Snowdrift design , ,

[Aaron Wolf]

On 05/02/2016 02:34 PM, Stephen Michel wrote:
> On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 4:27 PM, Michael Siepmann
>  wrote:
>> On 05/01/2016 10:11 PM, Aaron Wolf wrote:
>>> So, I learned from in research in traditional fundraising this
>>> interesting bit:
>>>
>>> This pertains to fundraisers wanting to get people to sign up as ongoing
>>> members where they donate monthly or annually (no matching in these
>>> traditional cases, of course — nobody has built the Snowdrift.coop model
>>> yet). If they include an opt-in checkbox for "one-time only donation" in
>>> what would otherwise assume that everyone signing up is going to be a
>>> sustaining member… then the mere presence of that opt-in choice results
>>> in *more* people becoming sustaining members!
>>>
>>> In other words, when people feel they aren't forced into being
>>> sustaining donors but have a choice to do one-time-only, they end up
>>> feeling more comfortable with going ahead and becoming sustaining
>>> members after all.
>>>
>>> So, we could use this idea in our design. We'd provide an opt-in choice
>>> to participate only once for just the next month's pay period. We'd set
>>> it up so that we don't encourage people to choose that. But maybe this
>>> would end up helping more people accept the normal sustaining pledge
>>> that we want everyone to go with…
>>
>> This makes sense to me.  Offering a few options rather than just one
>> can change people's decision frame from "shall I do this?" (yes vs.
>> no) to "how shall I do this?" (option 1 vs. option 2. vs none of the
>> above).  Offering a one-time option can allow people to try engaging
>> without making more of a commitment than they feel ready for.  Of
>> course it would be good to include an option to receive occasional
>> communications as a result of the one-time donation, but important for
>> that to be opt-in with a clear promise that you can unsubscribe
>> anytime.  And it's certainly good to avoid making people feel at all
>> pressured or manipulated, which can threaten peoples' need for
>> autonomy and trigger psychological reactance (i.e. the motivation to
>> avoid doing what you feel pressured to do, even if you might have
>> chosen to do it on your own if you hadn't felt that someone was
>> pressuring you).
>>
>> I also think it may be helpful or even important to offer options for
>> fractional and multiple patronage.  For example, if a project has a
>> lot of a patrons so the monthly amount per patron is high, and I'm
>> only an occasional user of what that project produces but would like
>> to support it, I could opt to be 1/4 of a patron.  Or if a project I
>> use heavily and care a lot about doesn't yet have so many patrons, or
>> has plenty but I still want to give it extra support, I could opt to
>> be a double or triple patron, etc.
> 
> I think the concept of fractional patronage is confusing; I also think
> too many options would be problematic. However, I like the idea of
> offering 3 levels: One-time donation, Ongoing donation at normal level,
> Ongoing donation at higher level. We could even incorporate elements of
> the original formula, if the "higher level" is 4x and you get matched
> like 2 patrons. I think we'd avoid the complexity of the original
> formula that way too, because we don't need to explain the way patron
> amount rises with the root of donation amount; we just say,
> "Super-patrons count for 2 patrons and donate at 4x the normal level".
> 

After MVP success, that sort of additional functionality is worth
considering, but the core issue remains: it's very weird to say "there
are X patrons, but an effective X+Y patrons because Y patrons are
donating at a higher level" and then on top of that the questions about
whether higher-level is actually normal etc etc. It just adds so much
overhead to the explanations of things.

> How do 1x pledges work at a technical level? Do they still need to
> create an account? Do we just bill them once and eat the fees?
> 
> Maybe that's still too much complexity. If so, we can drop the
> "higher-pledge-level-counts-as-multiple-patrons idea. Are either the
> ideas of one-time pledges or super-patronage MVP?
> 
> 

Neither concept is strict MVP, but the one-off opt-in is substantial
enough in terms of *potential* increase in conversion, that it warrants
research and consideration for even MVP or soon after. Again, the idea
isn't that we want anyone to do one-offs per se, the idea is that
providing this option has been shown to increase the number of total
patrons who do normal sustaining pledge.

Our plan for all situations is to pass on fees. We never eat fees. If we
let people donate one-time when the levels are still low overall and
their one-offs to several projects don't add up to much, it will mean
that most of the money they spend will probably go to the fees, and
that's silly, but we'd make that clear. That might actually be another
factor encouraging them to be sustaining patrons instead…




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Re: [Snowdrift-discuss] An opt-in we don't prefer could help Snowdrift design , ,

[Stephen Michel]

On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 4:27 PM, Michael Siepmann 
 wrote:

On 05/01/2016 10:11 PM, Aaron Wolf wrote:

So, I learned from in research in traditional fundraising this
interesting bit:

This pertains to fundraisers wanting to get people to sign up as 
ongoing

members where they donate monthly or annually (no matching in these
traditional cases, of course — nobody has built the Snowdrift.coop 
model
yet). If they include an opt-in checkbox for "one-time only 
donation" in

what would otherwise assume that everyone signing up is going to be a
sustaining member… then the mere presence of that opt-in choice 
results

in *more* people becoming sustaining members!

In other words, when people feel they aren't forced into being
sustaining donors but have a choice to do one-time-only, they end up
feeling more comfortable with going ahead and becoming sustaining
members after all.

So, we could use this idea in our design. We'd provide an opt-in 
choice
to participate only once for just the next month's pay period. We'd 
set
it up so that we don't encourage people to choose that. But maybe 
this

would end up helping more people accept the normal sustaining pledge
that we want everyone to go with…


This makes sense to me.  Offering a few options rather than just one 
can change people's decision frame from "shall I do this?" (yes vs. 
no) to "how shall I do this?" (option 1 vs. option 2. vs none of the 
above).  Offering a one-time option can allow people to try engaging 
without making more of a commitment than they feel ready for.  Of 
course it would be good to include an option to receive occasional 
communications as a result of the one-time donation, but important 
for that to be opt-in with a clear promise that you can unsubscribe 
anytime.  And it's certainly good to avoid making people feel at all 
pressured or manipulated, which can threaten peoples' need for 
autonomy and trigger psychological reactance (i.e. the motivation to 
avoid doing what you feel pressured to do, even if you might have 
chosen to do it on your own if you hadn't felt that someone was 
pressuring you).


I also think it may be helpful or even important to offer options for 
fractional and multiple patronage.  For example, if a project has a 
lot of a patrons so the monthly amount per patron is high, and I'm 
only an occasional user of what that project produces but would like 
to support it, I could opt to be 1/4 of a patron.  Or if a project I 
use heavily and care a lot about doesn't yet have so many patrons, or 
has plenty but I still want to give it extra support, I could opt to 
be a double or triple patron, etc.


I think the concept of fractional patronage is confusing; I also think 
too many options would be problematic. However, I like the idea of 
offering 3 levels: One-time donation, Ongoing donation at normal level, 
Ongoing donation at higher level. We could even incorporate elements of 
the original formula, if the "higher level" is 4x and you get matched 
like 2 patrons. I think we'd avoid the complexity of the original 
formula that way too, because we don't need to explain the way patron 
amount rises with the root of donation amount; we just say, 
"Super-patrons count for 2 patrons and donate at 4x the normal level".


How do 1x pledges work at a technical level? Do they still need to 
create an account? Do we just bill them once and eat the fees?


Maybe that's still too much complexity. If so, we can drop the 
"higher-pledge-level-counts-as-multiple-patrons idea. Are either the 
ideas of one-time pledges or super-patronage MVP?
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Re: [Snowdrift-discuss] An opt-in we don't prefer could help Snowdrift design , ,

[Aaron Wolf]

On 05/02/2016 01:27 PM, Michael Siepmann wrote:
> This makes sense to me.  Offering a few options rather than just one can
> change people's decision frame from "shall I do this?" (yes vs. no) to
> "how shall I do this?" (option 1 vs. option 2. vs none of the above). 
> Offering a one-time option can allow people to try engaging without
> making more of a commitment than they feel ready for.  Of course it
> would be good to include an option to receive occasional communications
> as a result of the one-time donation, but important for that to be
> opt-in with a clear promise that you can unsubscribe anytime.  And it's
> certainly good to avoid making people feel at all pressured or
> manipulated, which can threaten peoples' need for autonomy and trigger
> psychological reactance (i.e. the motivation to avoid doing what you
> feel pressured to do, even if you might have chosen to do it on your own
> if you hadn't felt that someone was pressuring you).
> 
> I also think it may be helpful or even important to offer options for
> fractional and multiple patronage.  For example, if a project has a lot
> of a patrons so the monthly amount per patron is high, and I'm only an
> occasional user of what that project produces but would like to support
> it, I could opt to be 1/4 of a patron.  Or if a project I use heavily
> and care a lot about doesn't yet have so many patrons, or has plenty but
> I still want to give it extra support, I could opt to be a double or
> triple patron, etc.
> 

Thanks, Michael.

For reference, the fractional or multiple patronage ideas make total
sense and were included in the initial planning of the whole system.
However, they are so much more complex in terms of the variables and
ramifications, that we came to realize it was totally impractical to
include any of those elements in the MVP launch. They are basically
tweaks and ideas for how to fine-tune the system once it becomes fully
successful already.

The one-time opt-in UI feature is simple enough technically and
conceptually that we could include it in MVP even. We could even
consider A/B where it is shown for some people and not for others and
see what impact it has…


> Best,
> 
> Michael
> 
> Michael Siepmann, Ph.D.
> *The Tech Design Psychologist*™
> /Shaping technology to help people flourish/™
> 303-835-0501   TechDesignPsych.com
>    OpenPGP: 6D65A4F7
> 
>  
> 
> On 05/01/2016 10:11 PM, Aaron Wolf wrote:
>> So, I learned from in research in traditional fundraising this
>> interesting bit:
>>
>> This pertains to fundraisers wanting to get people to sign up as ongoing
>> members where they donate monthly or annually (no matching in these
>> traditional cases, of course — nobody has built the Snowdrift.coop model
>> yet). If they include an opt-in checkbox for "one-time only donation" in
>> what would otherwise assume that everyone signing up is going to be a
>> sustaining member… then the mere presence of that opt-in choice results
>> in *more* people becoming sustaining members!
>>
>> In other words, when people feel they aren't forced into being
>> sustaining donors but have a choice to do one-time-only, they end up
>> feeling more comfortable with going ahead and becoming sustaining
>> members after all.
>>
>> So, we could use this idea in our design. We'd provide an opt-in choice
>> to participate only once for just the next month's pay period. We'd set
>> it up so that we don't encourage people to choose that. But maybe this
>> would end up helping more people accept the normal sustaining pledge
>> that we want everyone to go with…
>>
>> Incidentally, besides hearing thoughts from others, I'm not clear in our
>> new project management where is the best place to write down this idea
>> so that it gets discussed and can then be something our research and
>> design folks can consider and test…
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Aaron
>>
>>
>>
>> ___
>> Discuss mailing list
>> Discuss@lists.snowdrift.coop
>> https://lists.snowdrift.coop/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> 
> 
> 
> ___
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss@lists.snowdrift.coop
> https://lists.snowdrift.coop/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> 




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Re: [Snowdrift-discuss] An opt-in we don't prefer could help Snowdrift design , ,

[Michael Siepmann]

This makes sense to me.  Offering a few options rather than just one can
change people's decision frame from "shall I do this?" (yes vs. no) to
"how shall I do this?" (option 1 vs. option 2. vs none of the above). 
Offering a one-time option can allow people to try engaging without
making more of a commitment than they feel ready for.  Of course it
would be good to include an option to receive occasional communications
as a result of the one-time donation, but important for that to be
opt-in with a clear promise that you can unsubscribe anytime.  And it's
certainly good to avoid making people feel at all pressured or
manipulated, which can threaten peoples' need for autonomy and trigger
psychological reactance (i.e. the motivation to avoid doing what you
feel pressured to do, even if you might have chosen to do it on your own
if you hadn't felt that someone was pressuring you).

I also think it may be helpful or even important to offer options for
fractional and multiple patronage.  For example, if a project has a lot
of a patrons so the monthly amount per patron is high, and I'm only an
occasional user of what that project produces but would like to support
it, I could opt to be 1/4 of a patron.  Or if a project I use heavily
and care a lot about doesn't yet have so many patrons, or has plenty but
I still want to give it extra support, I could opt to be a double or
triple patron, etc.

Best,

Michael

Michael Siepmann, Ph.D.
*The Tech Design Psychologist*™
/Shaping technology to help people flourish/™
303-835-0501   TechDesignPsych.com
   OpenPGP: 6D65A4F7

 

On 05/01/2016 10:11 PM, Aaron Wolf wrote:
> So, I learned from in research in traditional fundraising this
> interesting bit:
>
> This pertains to fundraisers wanting to get people to sign up as ongoing
> members where they donate monthly or annually (no matching in these
> traditional cases, of course — nobody has built the Snowdrift.coop model
> yet). If they include an opt-in checkbox for "one-time only donation" in
> what would otherwise assume that everyone signing up is going to be a
> sustaining member… then the mere presence of that opt-in choice results
> in *more* people becoming sustaining members!
>
> In other words, when people feel they aren't forced into being
> sustaining donors but have a choice to do one-time-only, they end up
> feeling more comfortable with going ahead and becoming sustaining
> members after all.
>
> So, we could use this idea in our design. We'd provide an opt-in choice
> to participate only once for just the next month's pay period. We'd set
> it up so that we don't encourage people to choose that. But maybe this
> would end up helping more people accept the normal sustaining pledge
> that we want everyone to go with…
>
> Incidentally, besides hearing thoughts from others, I'm not clear in our
> new project management where is the best place to write down this idea
> so that it gets discussed and can then be something our research and
> design folks can consider and test…
>
> Cheers,
> Aaron
>
>
>
> ___
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss@lists.snowdrift.coop
> https://lists.snowdrift.coop/mailman/listinfo/discuss



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Re: [Snowdrift-discuss] An opt-in we don't prefer could help Snowdrift design , ,

[Victor Grousset/tuxayo]

On 02/05/2016 08:52, Jacob Chapman wrote:
> Yes. I think this is a great idea. By making it opt-in we can encourage
> people to be a sustaining member without rejecting the people who are
> used to one-time-only donations.

Indeed, that would allow projects to not need to keep a second donation
platform only for one-time-only donations. And remove a barrier to use
Snowdrift.coop.



-- 
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Re: [Snowdrift-discuss] An opt-in we don't prefer could help Snowdrift design , ,

[Stephen Michel]

On May 2, 2016 12:11:46 AM EDT, Aaron Wolf  wrote:
>Incidentally, besides hearing thoughts from others, I'm not clear in
>our
>new project management where is the best place to write down this idea
>so that it gets discussed and can then be something our research and
>design folks can consider and test…
>
>Cheers,
>Aaron

As an enhancement in Taiga issues. If you want to make extra sure design sees 
it you can add mray/msiep to the watchers list. 

Note that there is a draft on tree.taiga.io/project/snowdrift/wiki/home (typed 
that manually so it may be incorrect -- it's just the top level wiki page) with 
how to use Taiga, that Iko wrote and I need to read & edit. So it's not 
definitive yet but it does exist. You may as well start using it -- that will 
give me more incentive to do the review like I need to :P

-- 
Email Policy: http://stephenmichel.me/email
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