Pattern 68: Return visitors
 AKA:

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Users need a SENSE OF PROGRESS (48) and this extends beyond the time-span of a single visit. You may have put a splash panel on your HOME PAGE (28).

How do you know whether a user has visited your site before, so that you can treat her a return visitor?

Therefore

Use cookies to identify non-registered return visitors. Treat them differently to improve their experience. Think carefully about how they will react to being observed. Warn them before sending cookies, Javascript, etc.

This pattern is terminal within this language.

Discussion - forces - known uses

First time visitors may need different information or treatment from returning visitors. If you have a splash panel saying what your company does then returning users will find it merely annoying. They already know what you do, that’s why they’re back.

If your site involves registration then there is no problem but if not then this is a very tricky issue, because people have different attitudes to how much the site should be allowed to know about them. New European legislation proposes that you must ask users’ permission before you delivering cookies to their machines. We suggest that this is a good idea and should be done anyway. It gives the user a sense that you respect their privacy. Another problem with cookies is that they identify the machine rather than the user. A user can use two (or more) machines and a machine can be shared by several users.

If a visitor comes back often you could congratulate them on it in some way. But this could equally well delight or upset them.

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