Here we are, landing on a whole new site where we do not have an account.
Well we see a login button.
We see a friendly introductory message at the top of the screen and we read it all the way through it and we still don’t see how to sign up.
Then we checked the three bar menu.
Nope, no sign up button there either.
I see, it must be one of those employee only sites where everybody already has an account given to them by their manager and you don’t just join over the internet.
Well, you could at least put the sign up button somewhere in that three bar menu.
Of course I bet, I gamble, that if I push the login button there will probably be some instructions if I’m a person who doesn’t have an account yet.
But I’m saying that you guys really need to stick with some traditions and not go breaking familiar things just to save one button.
I mean wouldn’t it also be 10 times more welcoming to new users if they could see a sign up button?
Yeah I know what you’re saying, you’re saying Mr Jacobson just smell the coffee get used to the new way things are with a multi-purpose login button that’s the trend of the future…
Okay, indeed there in that login button, I see “welcome back”, which we already discussed, that some users have never been there before so don’t say welcome back.
And I see a ‘login with github.’
But that’s probably not a sign up with github. So I better not touch that. And indeed at the very bottom it says create your account. Which I will do.
Of course, there is the one in the login menu, but I’m curious as to why I’m not getting the sign in button at all, regardless of mode I’m viewing the site in.
Hmmm, the teacher tells the steps the students need to use a website,
and it turns out the basic important buttons all are present or absent
probably even depending on how one holds one’s cellphone. Who knows.
It’s a gamble.
Now imagine instructing a room full of senior citizens.
So maybe there needs to be a “seniors mode configuration option” to make
sure all the important buttons are present no matter what device is used.
Half of the sites shown here only have a “log in” button. And these are also sites with designated home pages/ you can’t access the service until you log in.
Thank you for the multiple images. But they seem to all drive home my point: no matter how small the sign UP button is, it always appears at the same time the sign IN button is present.
Just like if the sign IN button was a teenager, that always needs to have its sign UP button chaperone present.
Or the sign IN button was your pet dog, who is not going out of the house without its sign UP button flea collar attached.
And the chaperone is not allowed any bathroom breaks, so must be present, visible, with the teenager at all times, and not just in the other room or anything. Even within earshot.
I’ve discuss of that with several companies: do we actually need two buttons. Or one button and one very shy and modest text link.
My point is always same: only native english speakers in the meaning theirs european backgroung lies in history of UK may need separately sign up and log in. Everybody else don’t need it because they don’t see that difference.
And english speakers will learn how to use policy of one login-button, because sign up is logging in. There is no need that extra clutter because someone back in 1996 thought that was good idea and/or needed.
That isn’t any issue at all. There is not a single person that can’t create an account just because of lacking text link sign up. It is an issue for just another persons.
Edit.
There is one situation that actually forces us to use separate sign up and log in pages: biometrical and other passwordless solutions. We can’t offer that for an user without account. And that is actually quite crazy. Just because of (minor) language question and one and perhaps the most important way to login we have to keep sign up there.
