Login, sign in, ... what?

Chris Messina chris.messina at gmail.com
Thu Nov 12 18:26:49 UTC 2009


And don't forget Twitter and Facebook's "Connect".

It would be nice if we established a convention and promoted it, but I'm not
sure that'll happen.

Like profile photo sizes, each site does things a little differently and yet
the effect of choosing any of the listed options doesn't really effect the
overall usability of an app.

As well, "sign in" and "log in" no longer mean anything semantically —
they're just short hand for "give me access to my account" (since "signing
in" was something you did when you showed up for a field trip at school, and
"logging in" was something you did on a black screen, green text terminal).

"Connect" is the more interesting language, since it implies an ongoing
fusing of two resources — where data flows over a "connection"... not unlike
what happens when you "plug in" a plug to a wall outlet. Until you sever the
connection, the juice will flow.

I have also seen new language emerging in comment forms that is starting to
approximate what it means to present an OpenID and confirm ownership of it:

http://flic.kr/p/7eMb8H

Here the language used it "identify yourself via"...

JS-Kit's Echo comment service uses the email metaphor to good, if not
somewhat strange, effect:

http://flic.kr/p/7fcHwU
http://js-kit.com/

Anyway, all this is to say that we haven't quite cracked the nut yet as to
what's really going on with something like OpenID to say that "sign in" or
"log in" is sufficient. "Connect" is closer, but obscures which data is
being made available as part of that connection.

I'm glad you brought this up though, since it is something that bears
inspection.

Chris

On Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 8:27 PM, Johannes Ernst <jernst+openid.net@
netmesh.us> wrote:

> Informal Survey:
>
> Yahoo:
>        Sign In
>
> Google:
>        Sign in / Sign out
>
> Digg:
>        Login / Logout
>
> Slashdot:
>        Log In / Log Out
>
> AOL:
>        Sign In
>
> MySpace:
>        Log In
>
> Facebook:
>        Login
>
> MSN:
>        Sign in
>
> NYTimes:
>        Log In
>
>
> ... and this isn't even limited to OpenID Log/sign/in. Even capitalization
> and spacing is different.
>
> As part of the OpenID user experience, can we narrow this down? Or is that
> counter-productive?
>
>
> Cheers,
>
>
>
> Johannes.
>
> _______________________________________________
> user-experience mailing list
> user-experience at lists.openid.net
> http://lists.openid.net/mailman/listinfo/openid-user-experience
>



-- 
Chris Messina
Open Web Advocate

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