Tell HN: The logout button is in the wrong place | Hacker News Reader

Tell HN: The logout button is in the wrong place

5 pointsabrax31417 comments

On a phone it's too easy to accidentally logout when you mean to access your account (exactly the opposite semantics). Please move the logout button someplace else, away from other buttons, possibly at the bottom of the page. (After all, who would want to logout of HN?! :-)

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> After all, who would want to logout of HN?!

We definitely don't need more "dark pattern" implementations to artificially keep users logged in when they don't want to be. It's annoying to have to scroll around a website hunting for the logout button.

Several years ago I had a Discover card account, and one of the things that I always particularly liked about their website design is that when I wanted to log out, the button was always highlighted right where I first looked at the top of the page. The result is that I didn't leave their site every time with a negative thought about how long it took to find the damn button. I wish more sites took that approach.

Accidentally clicking uncommon and hard to recover-from actions overrides, and indeed supports, making them slightly painful to do.

It wouldn't be a dark pattern if it was a genuine design decision for the good of all users. It's hardly sneaky and sly to put it at the bottom.

I've lost count of how many times I accidentally logged out on mobile because not everyone has good dexterity when using a phone and can't so readily click on the profile link without fat-fingering 'logout'.

I've managed to never accidentally logout on a mobile browser ... there's pretty much never a reason to tap the upper right corner of the page, in my experience :)

Same, but I accidentally flag and hide posts all the time.

Weird

Never had that happen either

I accidentally log out of HN all the time on mobile. The upper right corner is the logical and normal place but normally it's in a drop-down menu.

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