Background
Yesterday, I self-hosted a Discourse instance on my server. After the deployment was complete, I proceeded to register the administrator (admin) account. However, after clicking the Register button, there was no response, and the process seemed to hang.
It took me a significant amount of time to realize that the issue was due to my password not meeting the minimum character length requirement.
Existing Solution & Observation
I must admit that I did see the official, friendly reminder stating that the password must be 15 characters or more. Despite this clear notice, I did not immediately associate this requirement with the registration failure. I eventually made the connection and successfully registered the account.
Optimization Recommendation
I believe the registration logic could be optimized for a better user experience. Here are my suggested approaches:
-
Client-Side Password Length Check: Introduce a check for the password string length upon submission.
- Concern: This approach raises a security concern, as users might worry that the site is monitoring their password input, making its feasibility low.
-
Enhance Password Input Field Formatting and Feedback (Recommended): Improve the password input field by adding visual constraints and dynamic feedback, similar to what is commonly used for password strength/format requirements.
-
2.1. Before Input (Placeholder/Tooltip): ◌◌◌◌◌◌◌◌◌◌◌◌◌◌◌
-
2.2. After Input (Dynamic Feedback): ●●●●●●●●◌◌◌◌◌◌◌
- B. Given that the user input is masked (obscured text), the remaining hollow circles represent the number of password characters still missing, and the solid circles represent the number of password characters already entered.
-
I am seeking confirmation on whether Approach 2 is a feasible and recommended path for optimization.