Single input login form
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Single input login form
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Re: Single input login form
#2This is one of those things that should be tested.
I use tab but I know many people who don’t. Replacing tab with something much more common like space might help. Or it might just confuse. I honestly don’t know.
Re: Single input login form
#3This is very unique, however empirically it may not perform well. In the end, it has the same attribute as two fields, except that instead of tabbing to the next you hit space.
Is it worth the change in paradigm for this small benefit? I guess only A/B testing will tell.
Re: Single input login form
#4From a personal point of view, I've been using keyboard buttons to navigate through forms for so many years (tab to go to next field, space to tick/untick a checkbox, etc.) that it wouldn't save me any time.
From the point of view of more generic computer users (such as my mother), I wouldn't think learning to type a space would be any easier than learning to hit tab, and would probably just cause confusion, due to the fact that different websites use different formats.
Re: Single input login form
#5I have some problems with this.
1) It's unfamiliar, and this will slow people down. While this is not a major issue, compared to the rest, it may certainly increase support costs, which may not be allowable if you're working on Enterprise software with a huge userbase.
2) It would require a nonstandard UI widget in order to display the username in cleartext while hiding the password in the same field. If you're designing for the web, this means you're messing with people on mobile devices, which are a fast-growing segment of the population.
3) If space is the delimiter for username/password, it means that you can't use space in your username. I HATE when you can't use space in your username and possibly in your password, depending upon on how well-designed and well-followed your spec is and becomes. For one, I prefer having my username as "Dan Hulton", not "DanHulton", though that's a minor quibble. More importantly, more entropy is more better, and allowing people to use spaces in their usernames/passwords encourages the use of passphrases, which are LEAGUES better than passwords.
Also, having separate warnings for your username and password matches is a bad security practice. Best to just say "username/password combination not found" instead of letting a potential hacker know he's stumbled upon a valid username.
Re: Single input login form
#6I suspect 3rd party password managers and such similar features native to browsers would not cope well with this single input login form.
I also wonder about the accessibility issues that would be inherent. JS would seem to be a large part of getting this solution to function and that can be an issue for screen reader users for example.
My instinctual reaction is to think that this is a solution that causes more problems than it solves. But none the less, I like it when people challenge the status quo and propose something new. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't but if no one ever did this, where would we be?
Re: Single input login form
#7Please, please don’t use this.
1. Besides the obvious UX problem of unfamiliarity, I would also expect some people (myself included) to worry about whether or not their password will be masked.
2. The “Password” placeholder in the mockup is actually impossible to reliably implement (on the web)… consider a 44-character username, for starters.
3. You are now responsible for removing the password from the DOM on page back/forward, something browsers often do automatically with real password fields. Good luck doing this x-browser.
4. The time your JS doesn’t load? That’s when your user sees their password displayed in unmasked plaintext.
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Addendum Amazon implemented a similar concept with their PayPhrase. Even if you’re not logged in, entering your unique phrase on a product page allows you to then enter a 4-digit PIN and BAM, you’ve ordered a product (to your previously entered credit card and location). The PayPhrase is notably neither a username or password, but is nevertheless uniquely tied to your account, and takes the place of your traditional credentials. Not only does this sidestep most of the issues of the combined username+password box, it’s purely optional, meaning it shouldn’t frustrate anyone.
Re: Single input login form
#8This is very unique, however empirically it may not perform well. In the end, it has the same attribute as two fields, except that instead of tabbing to the next you hit space. Is it worth the change in paradigm for this small benefit? I guess only A/B testing will tell.
I'm not a programmer but I feel like it would be straightforward enough to make the tab key yield a space in this instance, so that either the tab or the space key would work.
Re: Single input login form
#9A better way to do this:
* Have a text input and password input HTML entities next to each other with CSS that removed the right/left border and spacing (dynamically resize the input boxes if you like)
* Capture a space keyprees event to shift focus to the password field
* Same effect, but degrades in non-JS browsers to a normal entry field and allows the browser to still provide password remember, masking and form parsing on the backend.
I don't like the idea of splitting/parsing the field on the client side in JS - there is too much that can go wrong. You are telling the browser that this is just a normal text field, so the value will pop up (in the clear) on other sites that share the same input name.
Re: Single input login form
#10This is very unique, however empirically it may not perform well. In the end, it has the same attribute as two fields, except that instead of tabbing to the next you hit space. Is it worth the change in paradigm for this small benefit? I guess only A/B testing will tell.
I'm not a programmer but I feel like it would be straightforward enough to make the tab key yield a space in this instance, so that either the tab or the space key would work.
Simpler solution is probably the opposite -- leave sign in forms as they are and just let space key yield a tab.