Don't make customers hunt for the Sign In button on your website • Hacker News Board

Re: Don't make customers hunt for the Sign In button on your website

#191

Post by ogre_codes » Mon, May 03, 2021, 5:21 PM UTC

Why not just put the login in the top bar.

I’m not sure why a site would recommend making an extra click easier when it’s not necessary at all. If someone has ever logged into your site, they should get a login page so they don’t have to do some extra tap. This is triply true if your site is frustratingly slow to load.

Also:

Support password managers. Your damned custom login page BS might be cute in design but sucks for usability. If your site doesn’t work reasonably well with a password manager I won’t come back. US Bank lost my business this way recently.

Related: Have sane password requirements and limits. If my password manager gives you a 32 character password, don’t bitch because it doesn’t contain a number or uppercase character. It’s 32 characters long and unguessable, that should be enough. Also... if you fail because there is an underscore or ampersand, you’ve failed.

Re: Don't make customers hunt for the Sign In button on your website

#192

Post by kevincox » Mon, May 03, 2021, 5:21 PM UTC

nerdponx wrote: post #157

criddell wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like password managers should be able to handle the password being entered on the next page when there's no input on the current page.

KeepassXC (and its browser extension KeepassXC-Browser) does this. Not sure why anyone would even consider a different password manager. (Just don't forget to donate, if you have the means.)

Firefox also handles every one of these perfectly. I assume there is a hidden password field already but whatever it is it doesn't cause me issues other than an extra click.

Re: Don't make customers hunt for the Sign In button on your website

#193

Post by hcarvalhoalves » Mon, May 03, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #183

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #119

I swear, designers and developers are un-learning how to build sites. Things that used to Just Work on the web (sign in, scrolling, load speed, etc.) now merit an article.

It’s less about un-learning and more about the entire market changing, compromised by seemingly-endless VC money that rewards growth and “engagement” more than actual profits derived from value delivered to users. Nowadays a large chunk of online services’ objective is more to “engage” you and sign you up to some bullshit newsletter or sales call rather than actually provide you a service that you’d be happy to pay f…

See, I believe this is not a good enough argument.

This would be the same as excusing falling bridges and crashing planes on whoever's money speaking louder.

If the people who actually _build_ anything – the actual developers, engineers, etc. – don't build things up to standard or can't manage executive expectations, there's no hope; we'll live in a capitalocracy ruled by MBAs.

People building things need to care about the crap they ship because they'll have to use it too. There's way too many people in the industry not caring, just happy to collect a paycheck.

Re: Don't make customers hunt for the Sign In button on your website

#194

Post by philosopher1234 » Mon, May 03, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #180

philosopher1234 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a fixed amount of screen real estate on the landing page. Distributing it to your most important users for that page (prospective users) does make sense to me.

I can’t see how people that already pay me money could not be the most important users?

Your existing and paying users are:

1. Less likely to abandon your service than prospective users

2. by far less likely to even see your landing page, since they’re usually already logged in.

In this specific context, your existing users are the less important ones.

Re: Don't make customers hunt for the Sign In button on your website

#195

Post by philosopher1234 » Mon, May 03, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

kemotep wrote: post #178

philosopher1234 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a fixed amount of screen real estate on the landing page. Distributing it to your most important users for that page (prospective users) does make sense to me.

Is the solution presented in the blog to utilize a cookie to determine if someone is a prospective user versus already a user not an acceptable compromise? It seems rather straightforward to me, from their example, to de-emphasize the "Sign Up" button and prioritize the "Sign In" button for someone who already has an account.

That seems like a good strategy to me. It raises the question though, is it worth the cost of maintaining a separate page?

Re: Don't make customers hunt for the Sign In button on your website

#196

Post by AlchemistCamp » Mon, May 03, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #58

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #7

Digital Ocean has this problem.

I remember the same, but funnily enough, it seems to be fixed now, with both "Sign in" and "Sign up" buttons available on the top right. I don't remember how it was before, but I always started to create a new account instead of logging in.

It's significantly worse if your browser is half the width of a 1080p screen, which mine generally is.

Re: Don't make customers hunt for the Sign In button on your website

#197

Post by thomasahle » Mon, May 03, 2021, 7:46 PM UTC

nickjj wrote: post #130

thomasahle wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you shrink the website to half your screen width, the "Sign In" button goes away, and there is only "Sign Up". You can get to "Sign In" by clicking the burger menu and scroll sufficiently far down, or by searching. You can't find it by simply searching on the front page, or by just clicking the burger menu. I guess that's what people mean by "having to go hunting for the sign in button".

> If you shrink the website to half your screen width, the "Sign In" button goes away, and there is only "Sign Up". Interesting, I don't see that here. I wonder if they're A / B testing layouts and my IP is locked into a specific choice. If I open the page in Chrome or Firefox I see both buttons side by side and then if I slowly make the window smaller (starting at 2560 width btw), it eventually gets to the point whe…

One of the Sign Up buttons go into the burger menu, but the really big one stays on the front page: https://imgur.com/0bFzIiB

Re: Don't make customers hunt for the Sign In button on your website

#198

Post by leesalminen » Mon, May 03, 2021, 7:55 PM UTC

switch007 wrote: post #67

Anon1096 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vanguard is another one that drives me up the wall. Going to Vanguard.com doesn't have a sign in area to autofill with a password manager; you have to go to the personal investors page. And sessions are hard limited to 15 minutes so you have to jump through these hoops every time. I have the correct page bookmarked but even on that page the log in boxes don't appear until half way down.

The same Vanguard that could have millions of dollars of investments in your account? What’s the appropriate time out?

Should probably require a TOTP MFA code for all movements of money anyway regardless of session validity.

Re: Don't make customers hunt for the Sign In button on your website

#199

Post by memco » Mon, May 03, 2021, 8:14 PM UTC

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #53

dewey wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the problem? They have both "Sign in" and "Sign up" next to each other. Same color, opacity and the only difference being that there's a border around "Sign up".

On mobile, the sign in link is hidden behind a hamburger menu.

Yes, that's what gets me.

Re: Don't make customers hunt for the Sign In button on your website

#200

Post by cpcallen » Mon, May 03, 2021, 10:12 PM UTC

For a while it was the case that Mailchimp.com did not have a login button on their homepage at all. To log in I would have to use the link sent to me by the colleague who managed our account.