Sign Up

The teacher account "Sign Up" module shall be available in the lower right of the "Learn More" page. It's designed to be a simple, 5 step process, and consists of a static title heading "New Account Sign Up," to begin with, an instructional line that changes with each step, form field, and button. The styling, and action, should be pretty much identical to the login.

Step 1

In the first step of the "Sign Up" process, shown in the first mockup, above) the individual creating an account is clicking a button to identify whether he or she will use the platform as a parent or a teacher. There are a few subtle differences between a parent account and a teacher account (mostly in the areas of maximum number of student accounts that the user can create, as well as the price of the subscription). After the user makes a selection, he or she moves on to the second step.

Step 2

The second step of the "Sign Up" process (second mockup, above) asks the teacher for his or her first name. We will use this for the teacher's greeting, upon successful login. This field should not allow spaces, or any special characters. Only letters. Allow a maximum of 12 characters, minimum of 2 characters. Thus, it will take the typing of at least two characters to activate the submit button to move on to the next step. Let's also correct the case of the name that is typed (capitalizing the first character, and making the characters that follow be lowercase). In the database, I'd like to see uniformity with the names.

Note: At this stage the title of the "Sign Up" module should change from "New Account Sign Up" to either "Parent Account Sign Up" or "Teacher Account Sign up" depending on the selection made in "Step 1."

Step 3

As shown in the third mockup, above, the teacher is providing his or her last name in Step 3 of the "Sign Up" process. Just like the second step, let's set a minimum of 2 characters, but allow a maximum of 14 characters.

Step 4

This step (fourth mockup, above) asks the teacher to provide a valid email address. Here, we can run some checks to make sure the email address is valid, just like we do on Learningful. But, we don't need to throw any error messages if the entered email address isn't valid. Instead, let's just restrict activation of the submit button until a properly formatted email address has been entered. In other words, if the user types any entry without the "@" symbol, that button should remain inactive. Just like with the login's username field, this will need to be able to accept entries of up to 48 characters. The field should expand leftward, just as it does with the login, as well to a max of 4.8 rem). Make sure that all characters of the typed email address are forced to be lowercase.

When the user clicks to advance to the next step, run a check to see if the email address is already associated with a user account in the database. If so, throw an error message in the subtitle. "Account already exists. Log In." The "Log In" section of this error subtitle change should be linked back to the homepage so the user can login.

Step 5

In this step (fifth mockup, above), the teacher needs to create a password. For this project, security can be extremely lax, as all account holders can do is sign up, create student accounts, read the texts, etc. There's no money or private personal information involved that needs to be protected. So, here, let's simply mandate that the password be at least 4 characters. Allow for a maximum of 16 characters. That's it. Also, passwords shall not be case sensitive.

Terms of Service

The moment the teacher types at least 4 characters into the password field, the instruction line should change from "Create a password." to "I agree to these terms." with the latter two words of the sentence hyperlinked, as shown in the sixth mockup, above. And, if the teacher clicks on the hyperlinked phrase, Readingful's "Terms of Service" shall pop into place to the left, with a simple scroll bar that allows the teacher or parent to read the entire TOS, as shown in the seventh mockup, above. Readingful's terms of service are as follows:

1. Purpose. Readingful.com is an online, automated reading practice program, for students in grades K to 8. We invite all teachers and parents to use Readingful with their students, in pursuit of improving their reading comprehension skills. “We” refers to Mason Education, the operator of Readingful—also cited in these terms as “us” or “our.”

2. Agreement. By creating an account on the Readingful platform, you are contractually agreeing with, and to abide by, all rules and conditions set forth in these terms of use, in entirety, without exception. It is your sole responsibility to carefully read, and understand, this entire documentation of terms, prior to creating an account. If you do not agree to all terms, you are not permitted to use this website, or any portion of the service we offer.

3. Membership. To use Readingful, you must become a member. Doing so grants you a series of benefits—such as the ability to create student accounts, monitor the data they accumulate, purchase access for your students, and more. Membership is free and open to individuals who are 18 years of age, or older. At the time of account creation, you must identify your real name, provide a valid email address, and set a password. You are required to submit true, accurate information.

4. Privacy. The only personal information Readingful ever collects about you is your name and email address. We do not sell your information to any party, under any circumstance, and will never disclose it to anyone, unless you provide express consent, you violate these terms, or we’re required to by law. In addition, Readingful does not collect personal information about student users, whom, at their teacher‘s discretion, may use the program anonymously.

5. Trial Period. When you sign up for a Readingful account, it includes a one time free trial membership period of 14 days that begins upon successful account registration. During this free trial period, you enjoy full access to the entire program, to immediately begin using it with your students, with one notable exception: Your students are limited to reading only a certain number of pre-selected texts from Readingful’s story library. This limitation exists simply to stop abuse of the free trial function. Upon purchasing a subscription, both you, and your students, will gain full access to the entire Readingful story library.

6. Subscriptions. During the free trial period, you will be provided the option to extend your students’ access to Readingful beyond said trial. This extension may be purchased at any time. If you have time remaining on your free trial when this purchase is made, those days are converted into full access subscription days. You will not lose any of your free trial period days by subscribing before your free trial expires. Subscription payments are one time, non-recurring charges. They do not automatically renew.

7. Refunds. Readingful offers a generous free trial period, during which you are invited to actively try the full program with your students, in real time. As such, by purchasing a subscription to extend your students’ access to the program for a number of months into the future, you are signaling that you are satisfied with the Readingful service. With this in mind, you should consider any subscription payment you make as final. That said, we will always consider personal requests for refunds, on an individual case basis. You agree that refunds are only granted voluntarily by Mason Education in rare situations, and to never file any dispute, claim, chargeback, or similar action, with any payment processor, or financial institution, in an attempt to secure a refund by adversarial means.

8. Distribution. Readingful is a closed, sole-source service provider. You are not permitted to distribute or use elements of its stories and articles (including text, images, and/or assessment materials), outside of the platform, in any circumstance, for any reason.

9. Cancellation. You may cancel your Readingful subscription, and close your account, at any time. Account closure permanently deletes your account, and all associated student usage data, which cannot be recovered. Should you have any subscription time remaining on your account at the time of cancellation, you agree to its forfeiture.

10. Communication. Readingful may periodically contact you via email to update you about changes to your account, provide customer service, remind you to renew your subscription, or provide information about the platform in general. You agree that all such communication is transactional in nature, and that the only way to opt out of receiving it is to close your Readingful account altogether.

11. Abandonment. Readingful accounts that are inactive for in excess of one year are considered abandoned, and will be permanently deleted via our system’s automated account purging process. You agree that, in order to maintain your Readingful account in good standing, and it not be subject to autodeletion, you must sign into it at least once per year.

12. Transference. Readingful accounts are for individual use only. They may not be bought, sold, shared, given, or transferred between two or more parties, for any reason, in any circumstance. Only the creator of a Readingful account is permitted to access or use it.

13. Disputes. Any dispute or claim relating to your use of Readingful shall be adjudicated individually in the state or federal courts located in LaSalle County, Illinois, to which you consent to exclusive jurisdiction and venue. You, and Mason Education, each knowingly and voluntarily, agree to waive all respective rights to a trial by jury, as well as to bring, or participate in, a class, collective, consolidated, or representative legal action of any kind.

14. Severability. Any failure by Mason Education to enforce a provision or right expressed in these terms does not constitute a waiver of such, and shall in no way limit our subsequent ability to act or enforce said terms. If any part of these terms is deemed invalid, unenforceable, or illegal, said part, in as limited a manner as possible, shall be automatically severed from these terms, and shall have no impact on the enforceability of the remainder of its clauses.

15. Indemnification. You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless, Mason Education, its employees, officers, affiliates, and other representatives, from, and against, all costs, expenses, damages, judgments, debts, and liabilities (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) resulting from allegations, threats, claims, proceedings, or suits, brought by a third party, related, directly or indirectly, to your use of our platform and services, including, but not limited to, any breach of these terms.

16. Availability. While our goal is to always have Readingful available and functional, it is almost certain that rare disruptions will occur. We therefore cannot, and do not, make any guarantees that our platform, and its services, will be continuously available. Readingful is also constantly changing. As such, we make no promise that a service, or function, previously offered, will be available in the future. You agree that all services are provided on an “as is,” and “as available,” basis.

17. Liability. You agree that Mason Education shall not be liable to you for any damages or losses, including, but not limited to, loss of profits, reputational harm, data corruption, or the expense to procure substitute goods and services, resulting from 1. the use, or inability to use, the Readingful service; 2. unauthorized access to, or alteration, of, your transmissions or data; or 3. any other matter relating to our services.

18. Warranty. Mason Education, its employees, officers, agents, affiliates, and all other representatives, disclaim any warranty, of any variety, express or implied, with respect to your usage of our services. We make no guarantees respecting the security of our services at any time, from any location, including, but not limited to, the timely correction of defects or errors, that our services will be free of harmful materials (such as viruses), or any other guarantees.

19. Limitation. If your state or jurisdiction does not, by statute, allow the contractual exclusion or limitation of liability for incidental or consequential damages, Mason Education’s liability to you, and all ancillary parties, shall be limited to (a) the total amount you paid to Mason Education during the twelve (12) months prior to the claim or action allegedly giving rise to such liability, or (b) one hundred dollars ($100.00 USD), whichever is the lesser amount.

20. Copyright. Readingful’s trademarks, such as our logo, slogans, and other elements unique to the platform’s branding, are considered protected intellectual property under U.S. law. They may not be used or included as part of any commercial endeavor, to assert your association with the service, or in any similar application, without a representative of Mason Education granting you, in writing, explicit permission.

21. Penalty. Readingful takes the violation of these terms of use, intentional or otherwise, very seriously. You agree that, should we determine you have violated Readingful’s rules in any manner, we may take punitive action against you—including the suspension of your account’s functionality, forfeiture of subscription days remaining, the closing your account entirely, and/or permanently restricting you from using our services in the future.

Results

When the "Submit" button is clicked or tapped, the same processing animation used for the site login shall show on the button and hold for a few beats, the teacher's account shall be created in the database, and the results module shall appear, as shown in the eighth mockup, above. This section includes a title that notifies the user that the account has been successfully created, and then lists the teacher's provided username and password, along with a "Login" button below, that should fade back into the homepage, with the login activated.

Purging Unused/Inactive Accounts

Any teacher account that is created on Readingful and is not signed in to, within 48 hours, should automatically be purged from the database. Readagogo has a column in its database that marks the last sign in. So, basically any teacher accounts with a "null" designation for last sign in should be purged 48 hours after account creation. These are typically bot account creations, students messing around, or teachers who aren't all that interested in the first place. In addition, at 1 year of inactivity, previously-used teacher accounts should be purged entirely.

Moving Backward

For this "Sign Up" module, I considered adding the number of steps, and giving the user a back button to be able to move backward, in the event he or she realizes something has been typed incorrectly. However, in the end it's only 4 steps, and the user only has to create an account once. The back button of the browser should suffice for needing to start over, if it comes to that for the teacher. So, I think we'll forego adding those elements.

Welcome Email

Upon successful account creation, we will send a welcome email to the new user with a bit of information. But, we won't seek to verify email addresses. Readagogo hasn't incorporated email verification to date, and it hasn't caused any problems, as far as I can tell. I'll outline the system emails in another section of these specs.

Styling Checklist:

Images:

1. Sign Up Button Right Arrow Icon: sign_up_right_arrow.svg, 50 x 50, #FFFFFF

2. Sign Up Button Right Arrow Icon Hover: #FFFFFFBF

3. Sign Up Button Right Arrow Icon OnClick: #FFFFFF80

4. Sign Up Button Right Arrow Icon Disabled: #1B1D1E40

5. Sign Up Button Processing Icon: sign_up_processing.svg, 50 x 50, #FFFFFF

6. Sign Up Button Checkmark Icon: sign_up_checkmark.svg, 50 x 50, #FFFFFF

7. Sign Up Button Checkmark Icon Hover: #FFFFFFBF

8. Sign Up Button Checkmark Icon OnClick: #FFFFFF80

9. Sign Up Button Checkmark Icon Disabled: #1B1D1E40

10. Terms of Service Scroll Button: scroll_button.svg, 32 x 32, #616EE2

11. Terms of Service Scroll Button Hover: #5264D1

12. Terms of Service Scroll Button OnClick: #4254C1

Texts:

MOCKUP 1:

1. Sign Up Heading: 2.8 rem, #FFFFFF

2. Sign Up Infoline Text: 2.0 rem, #FFFFFF80

3. Sign Up Role Selection Button Text: 2.4 rem, #FFFFFF

4. Sign Up Role Selection Button Text Hover: 2.4 rem, #FFFFFFBF

5. Sign Up Role Selection Button Text OnClick: 2.4 rem, #FFFFFF80

6. Sign Up Role Selection Button Backslash Text: 2.4 rem, #FFFFFFBF

7. Sign Up Role Selection Button Backslash Text Hover: 2.4 rem, #FFFFFF80

8. Sign Up Role Selection Button Backslash Text OnClick: 2.4 rem, #FFFFFF40

MOCKUP 2:

1. Sign Up Form Field Text Default: 2.2 rem, #D5D3EA

MOCKUP 6:

1. Sign Up Form Field Text: 2.2 rem, #7186FF

2. Sign Up Infoline Hyperlink: 2.0 rem, #FFFFFF80

3. Sign Up Infoline Hyperlink Hover: 2.0 rem, #FFFFFFBF

4. Sign Up Infoline Hyperlink OnClick: 2.0 rem, #FFFFFF

5. Sign Up Form Field Error Text: 2.2 rem, #FF4848 - NOT SHOWN

MOCKUP 7:

1. Terms of Service Section Title Text: 1.8 rem, #FFFFFF

2. Terms of Service Section Paragraph Text: 1.8 rem, #FFFFFFB3

MOCKUP 7:

1. Sign Up Success Title: 2.8 rem, #FFFFFF

2. Sign Up Success Data Preface: 2.0 rem, #FFFFFF80

3. Sign Up Success Data Item: 2.0 rem, #FFFFFF

4. Sign Up Success Login Button Text: 2.4 rem, #FFFFFF

5. Sign Up Success Login Button Text Hover: 2.4 rem, #FFFFFFBF

6. Sign Up Success Login Button Text OnClick: 2.4 rem, #FFFFFF80

Objects:

1. Sign Up Role Selection Button 1: 244 x 50, #717CAA

2. Sign Up Role Selection Button 1 Hover: 244 x 50, #717CAABF

3. Sign Up Role Selection Button 1 OnClick: 244 x 50, #717CAA80

4. Sign Up Role Selection Button 2: 244 x 50, #616EE2

5. Sign Up Role Selection Button 2 Hover: 244 x 50, #616EE2BF

6. Sign Up Role Selection Button 2 OnClick: 244 x 50, #616EE280

7. Sign Up Form Field Background: 300 x 50, #FFFFFF

8. Sign Up Submit Button Background: 50 x 50, #6CB2FF

9. Sign Up Submit Button Background Hover: 50 x 50, #6CB2FFBF

10. Sign Up Submit Button Background OnClick: 50 x 50, #6CB2FF80

12. Terms of Service Scroll Bar: 8 x 380, #DFE2EA80