> The login screen that was presented, lifted the weight off my grey  
cells. I
 > found it extremely intuitive to login to the site using the userid/ 
email.

I have the opposite view: I have no idea how to log in to the IxDA  
site, and think it's one of the most awkward login screens I've ever  
seen. The first ten times I tried to login I either bailed or failed  
for one reason or another.

Let me walk through my thoughts when looking at the sign-in form: It  
definitely "Made me Think":

... Signing in with my "Name"? I've never seen that before. What the  
heck is my "name"? cfahey? cf? chris.fahey? Christopher Fahey? Chris  
Fahey? Caps sensitive? With spaces?... What is the authentication  
here? It doesn't say on the form, and I do *not* want to read all  
that little grey text. I am not confident that this is a secure  
system... How do I find out what name I initially used to sign in? Is  
there a "forgot name" link? Where is the password part, is that on  
another screen? How will it know that the person I claim to be is the  
same person who posts to the list by email?... I sign in on using  
multiple computers and/or clear my cookies/caches fairly frequently,  
will I have to go through all of this over and over again every time  
I want to use the site?... Dude, where is the login form!...

I just now tried to log in, and it worked (apparently it remembers  
me), but I am still generally reluctant to visit the web site at all  
because I fear that it will forget me and I'll get all confused by  
the form again. This is why I stick with the email list.

For almost every web site that I use, the login pattern fits one of  
three basic models (none of which match IxDA's approach):

1) I know my username and password, and I type them in.
2) I use the site so often that I've asked my browser to remember the  
password.
3) I forgot the password, so I use the "forgot password" feature to  
get me in.

Despite the fact that web sites generally think they're so important  
to their users that users will remember their passwords, I actually  
use mode #3 almost every single day on one site or another. (I would  
guess that this is an extremely common login method for lots of  
people, I wonder why it's not more formalized).

I don't see the big deal of just having a email/password + "remember  
my password" system. Maybe then more than 5% of visitors would log in.

-Cf

Christopher Fahey
____________________________
Behavior
biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com
me: http://www.graphpaper.com

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