How should we present analytics opt-out in the frontend user interface?

[zackkrida]

Due date: 2023-05-10

Assigned reviewers

• @fcoveram
• @dhruvkb

Description

For the #394 project we need to allow users to opt-out of analytics tracking. This will allow users to opt out of page view and custom event tracking. Currently, we do not allow users to opt out of the page view tracking we collect via Cloudflare Analytics, so this change gives more flexibility and freedom to users than we currently offer.

One goal of this interface is to avoid bloating the scope of the analytics project as much as possible. To that aim, I've proposed the following approach:

• Add a banner to the top of Openverse which says "Openverse uses analytics to improve the quality of the service. Visit our privacy page to opt-out." and which has "opt out" and "Allow" buttons.

• Add the existing analytics feature flag from the preferences page (https://staging.openverse.org/preferences) to the privacy page

This allows us to quickly create an acceptable flow using existing components and routes, without needing any custom UI, a dedicated implementation plan, or any design work (beyond choosing copy and color of the banner, and placement of the toggle on the privacy page [before or after the existing copy]).

Is this an acceptable solution? What do you think? If the two proposed reviewers of this discussion approve the idea, I'd like to fast-track this and close the discussion before the indicated date.

[fcoveram]

I like the idea of showing a notification message for the scope of this project, but I deeply believe we need to move the browsing settings to be reachable from the browsing experience. I hope we can address that this year.

The notification styles were inherited from Openverse period of living on the WordPress site, so a few visual tweaks are necessary. I adjusted the banner's height to sync it with the library styles and added a transparent area on the sides to prevent blending the component with dark-themed browsers that users might have.

For the privacy page, the example you attach works great. I would place it before the current content and ping comm folks for feedback or suggestion on content we could be missing.

Mockups

Homepage in dark browser

[dhruvkb]

I like the look of the this banner, it's very clean yet noticeable. Is this design applicable to existing banners as well or specific to the analytics banner only?

Irrespective of the answer, this design has my approval all the way, albeit as a stopgap solution till we have a good UX for all the possible settings toggles we may add later.

[fcoveram]

Is this design applicable to existing banners as well or specific to the analytics banner only?

It does, but I will need to update all banners. I tried to find them in storybook but we don't have a section for them.

In any case, should we implement this banner solely or create a ticket to update all banners?

[dhruvkb]

I forgot to say this before, but could you also add some mockups that show the positioning of the analytics banner relative to other banners on the page?

Updating banners does not seem like a particularly hard task, so if banners need to be updated, we should do that to maintain the cohesive look. A rollout with inconsistently styled banners would be sub-optimal.

[zackkrida]

@fcoveram @dhruvkb I think we should update all the existing banners to have the new padding. An issue for that would be excellent, @fcoveram.

@dhruvkb are you just looking to know if the analytics banner should be above or below the existing banners? What order do you think, @fcoveram?

[dhruvkb]

Yeah mainly I wanted to know the positioning of two banners relative to each other: above, below, touching, overlapping, joined, spaced (if so how much?) etc.

[sarayourfriend]

@zackkrida Is this discussion still in progress? It is marked high priority but has no activity for the last two weeks and is over a month old now.

[dhruvkb]

I updated the discussion with the resolution and closed it, thanks for bringing attention to this!

[dhruvkb]

This discussion has already been resolved and the recommended changes have already been developed and merged to the frontend:

• the toggle for opting out of analytics on the Privacy page (Add analytics toggle to the privacy page #2127)
• the notification for analytics (Update banner to match new designs and add analytics notification  #2132)

[fcoveram]

I also marked my review request as done in the initial message.