Don't be shy Mefi! Invite banner for non-members

October 15, 2021 3:00 PM

Accessing metafilter while logged out for a couple of months on my work laptop and it's only today I finally noticed the narrow green banner at the top inviting me to join. I appreciate the site's commitment to a text-based calm UI but surely this can be boosted some more before it's a blinking pop-up with a stock photo woman urging you that hot singles are in your conversation now. Ditto for the sign up page - the call to action is a text link at the very bottom after a screen full of text. Can we be more welcoming/inviting for non-members?
posted by dorothyisunderwood to MetaFilter-Related at 3:00 PM (7 comments total)

Heh. You only just noticed it because we only just added it! There may be good ways to improve this for sure; this was an easy-to-accomplish small step that we could get done within a few hours of first talking about it, so that's where we're starting.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:01 PM on October 15, 2021 [7 favorites]

I'd suggest making the first line darker and a little bolder on line two. It's noticable...good idea. Perhaps a MeFi logo with a cat. I'm not being snide people love cats I love cats.
posted by clavdivs at 3:24 PM on October 15, 2021 [5 favorites]

Put another cat on the scanner...
posted by a humble nudibranch at 10:10 PM on October 16, 2021

Great start! I do agree that making the welcoming invitation to join a bit bigger or otherwise more prominent is a good thing to aim for.

Does Metafilter do any cookies with non-logged-in users? Might be a nice idea to have a slightly larger message that appears (maybe near the ads) for frequent visitors. Possibly also a invitation to contribute? Something like: "We've noticed you come here often. So do we! We'd love to have you as a member, you can join here! And if you get a lot of out reading Metafilter and can afford to help us keep the lights on, our community could use the help here!" During membership and fundraising drives, the text could be updated appropriately. If no cookies are set for non-logged-in users then a more generic "join us/fund us" message seems fine.
posted by biogeo at 8:44 PM on October 17, 2021 [1 favorite]

Blink tag.
posted by Literaryhero at 1:41 AM on October 18, 2021 [3 favorites]

Blink tag works on metafilter but modern browsers don't support it.
posted by Mitheral at 6:22 PM on October 22, 2021

Count me in as thinking this would probably be a good idea.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:46 PM on October 28, 2021