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Semi-related: The trend of the not having a log in button and only a sign up button, requiring multiple clicks just to login. I get that less friction for a ne

Semi-related: The trend of the not having a log in button and only a sign up button, requiring multiple clicks just to login. I get that less friction for a new user is better being the thinking but I truly hate having to go through multiple pages just to sign in. What happened to having sign in/sign up being on the same page? Seems the simple and easy, as well as lowest friction way of splitting the difference between new and existing users.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago
I'm sure UX research shows that the login button is seldom used on a particular site, therefore not that important. Why seldom used? Because you stay logged in for a long time. Is UX bull on this issue? Maybe, but if you are logged in for a long time, and then you come to log in when you've been logged out, it might be that you accept the lousy experience on this issue because you actually want to use the site... all that said I wouldn't care if the UX research suggested it was a good move. I wouldn't do it (on anything I owned, I would just argue against it if asked to implement it)
- alpaca128 5y ago
  UX research also shows that one of the most important things is consistency. Internal consistency as well as consistency with other websites the user is familiar with. 99% of sites don't have so many features and sections that they'd need to omit some of them from the landing page. But for some reason they think replacing UI elements with screen-filling fancy animations and a lot of empty space inbetween is somehow a good thing. I never saw any upside in this. I have a short attention span and am easily distracted, and modern UI trends are catastrophic from my perspective. I don't care about a fancy "hero area", just give me a menu bar that stays in the same place and gets me anywhere I need.
fireattack 5y ago
Seriously. I honestly don't mind to have "sign up" being more prominent, but see very little reason why they go further and hide login button..
spicybright 5y ago
I miss going to foo.com and having user/pass fields on the top row of the screen, with maybe a sign up link next to it.
- jspash 5y ago
  Ahhh. I miss the days of the username and password being on the same page! I refuse to believe that the average internet user gets confused by a two field form that they need to break it into two (usually slow) steps. Re-architected in (usually flaky) javascript. That takes up (always more) of my time! (sorry for the !!!'s. but this one really gets my goat)
  - jtvjan 5y ago
    That's to support single sign-on. It checks whether to show the in-house sign-in page or to redirect.
    - midasuni 5y ago
      Can’t you detect it client side? Send the contents of the username field to the backend, if it’s SSO change the password field to “login with ssoprovider.com”
      - isbvhodnvemrwvn 5y ago
        It's even worse user experience since things change as you type (you have to wait for network round trip so it's not instant), plus password managers are still confused.
    - daniellarusso 5y ago
      I thought it was to make scraping slightly more difficult.
    - Nextgrid 5y ago
      This one is a significant failure of our entire industry. We've somehow accepted that degrading user experience because of an implementation detail is good instead of working together to hide that implementation detail by implementing the necessary browser functionality. We already have technologies such as Kerberos that are supported in every browser and seem like they would solve this problem. In any case, as a website operator you can mitigate this. Have separate pages for SSO/non-SSO, dynamically hide the password field if the username is associated with an SSO provider, or just ignore the password field and have a subtitle along the lines of "leave password empty for SSO accounts".
rorykoehler 5y ago
I save the login page link in my password manager. Problem solved.
- WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
  Other people still had the problem, even after you did that. Problem not solved?
oneeyedpigeon 5y ago
I love this pattern - I think it was Slashdot I first saw it on - but it still suffers from the same problem. What do you label the button - "sign up / login"? It's still easy to miss that it's also for login when scanning.
ziml77 5y ago
More clicks to log in than sign up is annoying, but what really bothers me is when they don't make it clear that the page brings you to both. Like if the button only says "Sign up" I'm going to look around for a bit for a "Log in" button first. If they're going to combine them, the least they could do is make it say "Sign up/Log in"

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

I'm sure UX research shows that the login button is seldom used on a particular site, therefore not that important. Why seldom used? Because you stay logged in for a long time. Is UX bull on this issue? Maybe, but if you are logged in for a long time, and then you come to log in when you've been logged out, it might be that you accept the lousy experience on this issue because you actually want to use the site... all that said I wouldn't care if the UX research suggested it was a good move. I wouldn't do it (on anything I owned, I would just argue against it if asked to implement it)

alpaca128 5y ago
UX research also shows that one of the most important things is consistency. Internal consistency as well as consistency with other websites the user is familiar with. 99% of sites don't have so many features and sections that they'd need to omit some of them from the landing page. But for some reason they think replacing UI elements with screen-filling fancy animations and a lot of empty space inbetween is somehow a good thing. I never saw any upside in this. I have a short attention span and am easily distracted, and modern UI trends are catastrophic from my perspective. I don't care about a fancy "hero area", just give me a menu bar that stays in the same place and gets me anywhere I need.

fireattack 5y ago

Seriously. I honestly don't mind to have "sign up" being more prominent, but see very little reason why they go further and hide login button..

spicybright 5y ago

I miss going to foo.com and having user/pass fields on the top row of the screen, with maybe a sign up link next to it.

jspash 5y ago
Ahhh. I miss the days of the username and password being on the same page! I refuse to believe that the average internet user gets confused by a two field form that they need to break it into two (usually slow) steps. Re-architected in (usually flaky) javascript. That takes up (always more) of my time! (sorry for the !!!'s. but this one really gets my goat)
- jtvjan 5y ago
  That's to support single sign-on. It checks whether to show the in-house sign-in page or to redirect.
  - midasuni 5y ago
    Can’t you detect it client side? Send the contents of the username field to the backend, if it’s SSO change the password field to “login with ssoprovider.com”
    - isbvhodnvemrwvn 5y ago
      It's even worse user experience since things change as you type (you have to wait for network round trip so it's not instant), plus password managers are still confused.
  - daniellarusso 5y ago
    I thought it was to make scraping slightly more difficult.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    This one is a significant failure of our entire industry. We've somehow accepted that degrading user experience because of an implementation detail is good instead of working together to hide that implementation detail by implementing the necessary browser functionality. We already have technologies such as Kerberos that are supported in every browser and seem like they would solve this problem. In any case, as a website operator you can mitigate this. Have separate pages for SSO/non-SSO, dynamically hide the password field if the username is associated with an SSO provider, or just ignore the password field and have a subtitle along the lines of "leave password empty for SSO accounts".

rorykoehler 5y ago

I save the login page link in my password manager. Problem solved.

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
Other people still had the problem, even after you did that. Problem not solved?

oneeyedpigeon 5y ago

I love this pattern - I think it was Slashdot I first saw it on - but it still suffers from the same problem. What do you label the button - "sign up / login"? It's still easy to miss that it's also for login when scanning.

ziml77 5y ago

More clicks to log in than sign up is annoying, but what really bothers me is when they don't make it clear that the page brings you to both. Like if the button only says "Sign up" I'm going to look around for a bit for a "Log in" button first. If they're going to combine them, the least they could do is make it say "Sign up/Log in"