Ways to Simplify 'Sign In'

baymard.com

9 pointsjeffmiller4 comments

The article quite well describes some of the valuable features of a good login UI.

The login page is (often) the first place a user encounter your site. If that page creates a sense of repulsion in the user or forces him to struggle, the user is probably left with a feeling that your site is against him. That's not something you want.

Its not difficult nor time-consuming to implement a proper login UI. However, surprisingly many sites don't pay enough attention to it.

Well said.

I've often wondered this myself when designing login forms, but doesn't identifying which field failed expose a security issue? A malicious user could use the feedback to determine if accounts exist or not. This seems like a concern to me.

Half of the advice in this article is terrible. Never tell the user which field they got wrong. Also, if you're going to allow signing in from any page then every single page needs to be transmitted over HTTPS in order to prevent a man-in-the-middle attack. The author really needs to think of issues outside of plain usability before writing articles like these.

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