"I forgot my password" - UID issue - 09/12/1999 8:21 PM
Hi!
I run wwwthreads-free - and I'm very happy with it.
I just want to make a little suggestion based on the following observation of my users: when they forget their password they go to the login screen, leave all the fields[/b] blank and hit "I forgot my password".
After this happened a couple of times I realised that this is a "bug in the user interface" - people who are not too much of a computer wiz don't realise that they would have to supply the computer with their name but leave the password field blank and then hit that button.
First, they "have just clicked that link" so it doesn't make sense to them that the computer won't know who they are; the only reason they think it's "normal" to give their username and password when logging on anyway is that giving your username and password is "that thing you have to do to log onto computers" - they remember this as sort of a routine - and when this routine is broken because now they want to complete a different task (getting a new password instead of logging on) it never even enters their minds that they now would have to fill in just one of the fields.
Second, the screen is not really appropriate for the task - there are two fields one of which you must leave blank - which is strange to users.
So I hacked the scripts a little to make this look different - the result can be seen at frauenweb.at; it's in German but I think you get my drift.
bye, tina
I run wwwthreads-free - and I'm very happy with it.
I just want to make a little suggestion based on the following observation of my users: when they forget their password they go to the login screen, leave all the fields[/b] blank and hit "I forgot my password".
After this happened a couple of times I realised that this is a "bug in the user interface" - people who are not too much of a computer wiz don't realise that they would have to supply the computer with their name but leave the password field blank and then hit that button.
First, they "have just clicked that link" so it doesn't make sense to them that the computer won't know who they are; the only reason they think it's "normal" to give their username and password when logging on anyway is that giving your username and password is "that thing you have to do to log onto computers" - they remember this as sort of a routine - and when this routine is broken because now they want to complete a different task (getting a new password instead of logging on) it never even enters their minds that they now would have to fill in just one of the fields.
Second, the screen is not really appropriate for the task - there are two fields one of which you must leave blank - which is strange to users.
So I hacked the scripts a little to make this look different - the result can be seen at frauenweb.at; it's in German but I think you get my drift.
bye, tina