"Easier" Login for Xenforo forums - any ideas ? ( registration, register, Log in)

[Amaury]

http://www.kh-flare.net//

 

[BeyBrad]

http://www.kh-flare.net//

It took me a bit to find the sign up/login.

 

[Amaury]

It's at the top right. It's incredibly difficult to miss. Although in the KH-Flare 2014 style it's in the navigation bar.

 

[BeyBrad]

It's at the top right. It's incredibly difficult to miss. Although in the KH-Flare 2014 style it's in the navigation bar.

Yes, it's in the top right, however it's dark grey on light grey and not attached to the nav bar (where you would expect to find it). Everything else on the page is red or pink and commands attention. The sign-up button should stand out a lot more.

 

[Amaury]

I notice it right away opening the page as a guest. It's not that difficult.

 

[ozzy47]

I see it cause I know where to look, but it could be a bit more pronounced.

 

[mysiteguy]

I notice it right away opening the page as a guest. It's not that difficult.

You notice it, but I agree, it does not make itself obvious.

 

[R0binHood]

Yeah, I'd recommend the 'Sign Up' link at least be a bit more prominent and 'Call to Action' like, as it's the new users whose eyes you want to draw to that button Amaury. You also want users logged into the service. The more prominent those buttons are, the more likely they're to login every visit.

A lot of talk about pushing tab.
How non relevant that is now!

How is tabbing not relevent now? I still use tabs to complete forms every day!

Not sure DD if when you enter phone number you might not get sent a code and asked to validate your account proper with it. That actually a pretty good anti-spam measure

I know but asking for my digits is more "intrusive" than my email

I'd love there to be an add on that integrates SMS user registration code confirmation as a form of anti-spam prevention.

You don't have to store the numbers if you don't want to, just link your registration form with Twilio, require the SMS code to be entered before registration can be completed and then discard the users number.

I bet that would drastically reduce the chance of spam, for a fraction of a penny per registration. Well worth it on time saved cleaning up spam. You could get over 100 verified registration for less than $1

 

[pierce]

R0binHood thinking that most normal people (like 71%) are on a mobile it's not really an issue. For my site.

I don't think many users would be that handy with a keyboard either.

 

[R0binHood]

Not many users handy with a keyboard? In this day and age? I'd argue that more people than ever are handy with a keyboard and I would guess that the latest young generation are probably the most proficient touch typers from an early age that we've ever had.

Yeah, mobile is the future, but I still much prefer filling in forms with a keyboard and work primarily on computers with physical keyboards. I think the tab order should still definitely be an important UX focus for any form, it's directly related to the flow of filling it in anyway.

I've got the whole sign in process integrating the spacebar to check the 'remember me' settings for logging into any site it really throws me off when it's not in that order

Username
*tab*
Password
*tab*
□ Remember me
*space*
*tab*
*enter*

 

[BeyBrad]

I notice it right away opening the page as a guest. It's not that difficult.

It's not about whether it's difficult or not; good design should guide the user through taking ideal actions. That means playing with placement, color and styling to draw attention to critical elements, "milestones" in the user's journey.

This is a thread about improving the login process. If we can't scrutinize details like this here, where can we?

There are so many threads about the problems and stagnation with forum UI and UX, and how forums are dying in popularity because newer generations are not interested in them. (This is true.) But not hard to see why when more social media on other mainstream communication platforms are constantly optimizing for user engagement and even user delight whereas the standard for traditional forums is convoluted UI, clunky and discouraging registration, no onboarding ... forget delight, you're lucky if you can even get a mobile version that looks like anything other than the desktop site but squished to fit into portrait instead of landscape.

In a world where on a forum about successfully running online message boards you'll find people saying it's not a big deal if the sign up button doesn't stand out — this is like the minimum in basic conversion optimization and care for the user experience — the stagnant state of forums isn't really a surprise.

OP, you are right than the XenForo experience is really disorienting. In digital advertising, making sure that the text and graphics on an ad match the text and graphics on a landing page is called message match, and it results in more conversions because if those things don't match, people get confused. in XenForo's case, you click a button that says one thing ("Sign up now!") and are shown a box that's most prominent button says "log in". Considering these actions are usually presented as two separate options, making them almost opposites, it feels like you're being shown the wrong information.

My advice, barring any "just-in-time" registration ideas or anything like that, is seriously just to keep it as short and simple as possible. Email, username, password. You don't need to confirm these fields. Give the user an option to see their password:

http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1941
http://uxmovement.com/forms/why-the-confirm-password-field-must-die/
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/10/password-masking-hurt-signup-form/

This might result in a few more "forgot lost password" submissions on your site, but the end result is a far more frictionless and encouraging signup process.

 

[pierce]

This generation swypes. It no longer has to be able to touch type. Or even spell.

And if I'm over estimating, it will be the future in 3-5 years.

Where is the tab key on a mobile phone keyboard?

 

[R0binHood]

They don't have to be able to touch type, but the incredibly fast text typing makes it easier to learn how to touch type on a real keyboard and while many users consume content on mobile, much is still created on real computers and keyboards.

Even if tabs aren't relevant to mobile devices, you don't want to ostracise your computer users by frustrating the experience when it can still be optimised and enhanced without detriment to the mobile experience

Real keyboards will never completely go away.

 

[BeyBrad]

Arguing about whether tabbing is popular or not is irrelevant. It's a function that's there, enabled by default in every desktop browser. It isn't hard to make it work properly. If even that doesn't meet the minimum threshold for caring about your site, I am not sure why you'd be here to discuss running a website in the first place. (Or, god forbid, creating forum software. lol)

 

[pierce]

My comment is not about the importance of tabbing but the threads linked to by Digital Doctor go back to 2011 when mobile wasn't so prevalent.

If I knew about the thread back then id be arguing for tabbing just as much.

But 5 years on its not as important.

There are a lot of other things to worry about as an admin. Such as engagement, interaction with your users, even how you don't interact with them, mail delivery (for validation) and soo on and so forth.

 

[BeyBrad]

My comment is not about the importance of tabbing but the threads linked to by Digital Doctor go back to 2011 when mobile wasn't so prevalent.

If I knew about the thread back then id be arguing for tabbing just as much.

But 5 years on its not as important.

There are a lot of other things to worry about as an admin. Such as engagement, interaction with your users, even how you don't interact with them, mail delivery (for validation) and soo on and so forth.

It's five minutes of work, tops: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_global_tabindex.asp

It's pretty baffling to me to see people arguing against good community design practices on a forum that I thought was largely about good community design (and management) practices ...

Also, I see tons of people here saying "people don't do x anymore" or "it's not as important." I never see data or even articles backing this up. These are just assumptions you're making because they're convenient for you.

 

[pierce]

It's five minutes of work, tops: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_global_tabindex.asp

It's pretty baffling to me to see people arguing against good community design practices on a forum that I thought was largely about good community design (and management) practices ...

Also, I see tons of people here saying "people don't do x anymore" or "it's not as important." I never see data or even articles backing this up. These are just assumptions you're making because they're convenient for you.

Your equally not providing evidence that people do.

But here is my evidence.

70% of traffic for my site is on a mobile, and having used android and apple devices the tab key is not obvious.

Facebooks earnings are 84% from mobile yet again. 90+ % mobile use?

And specially talking about a login process. Most users will tick the remember me box so won't see it for a very long time.

If it was a constantly repetitive action.... But it's not.

 

[BeyBrad]

I don't get it. I understand that most of an audience might me mobile. I understand that only a minority of desktop users will use it. But it's an extremely basic browser feature and people who do use it expect it to work well.

People do use it. (I use it, constantly!) I can't say exactly how many, and I did actually look for studies. I suspect it's not a huge number, and this person noted that 5-10% of people in user tests he's run use the tab key. 5-10% seems tiny, but up to 10% of the entire desktop audience is not nothing.

Either way, as an admin I am interested in providing a quality experience to users. That's my passion and that's why I am here on TAZ. Basic expected functionality being broken is unacceptable for me. I don't see the point of defending broken form functionality in a thread about improving forms.

 

[mysiteguy]

I make it as simple as possible. It absolutely does increase registrations on both mobile and desktop. Here's my sign up form on XF:



The password shows while it's in focus so they can get it right without a 2nd confirmation field. It switches back to masking ( ******** ) when the field loses focus.

I want the absolute lowest barriers to registration possible.

 

[pierce]

login/login: 1278 page views
Mobile: 859 page views 53 seconds average
Desktop: 419 page views 46 seconds average

* But! theres only 285 "unique" login's which is pageviews->users

register/register (the page after login/login if your registering)
mobile:488 3minutes 14seconds
desktop: 144 2minutes

*But there was 117 unique page views registered for desktop. pageviews->users

366 registrations in august period (from xenforo)

285-117 = 168

10% of 168 = 16.8

Leaves 17 users that might have used TAB

Active users monthly last month 796 (from xen admin, under user search), if I go to statistics is 7800~

So 2% of users in August would be affected by a poor TAB implementation. Or 0.2% of all active logins.