[Design] Re: [Cosmo][Proposal] Sign-up Workflow

[Matthew Eernisse]

Inline, below ...

Travis Vachon wrote:
>>
>> Travis had the idea of keeping the Sign-up form in a dialog, while 
>> removing the 'Cancel' button, thereby creating a 'forcing function' 
>> which shuttles the user away from landing on the Login page before 
>> they've had a chance to activate their account.
>>
> 
> In addition to removing the cancel button, I think in this case it would 
> make sense for the "dialog" to eventually not look like a dialog, but 
> instead look like the ui in Mimi's mockups.

Are y'all talking about the Close button that shows up after the account 
gets created? You need the Cancel button on the initial dialog so you 
can dismiss it if you decide for whatever reason not to create a new 
account.

If you are indeed referring to the Close button, I think hiding that is 
a fine idea when e-mail activation is turned on. It might look odd with 
that dialog still just hanging out there, but it does discourage users 
from trying to log right in without going to e-mail.

(As a separate issue, we should probably axe the link for creating 
another account, and only show the link for logging into Cosmo when 
e-mail notification is turned off -- but make it boot them right into 
the UI when clicked.)

I think the mockups are definitely an improvement over what we have now.

One little nit to pick -- we need to use consistent, correct English on 
our labels and buttons:

1. Login

When it's used as a verb, it's "log in" -- two words.

"He wants to log in right now, but he has to activate his account first."
"He logged in three times yesterday."
"She's logging in as we speak."
"You can't log in from that page."

When it's a noun or adjective, it's either hyphenated if you want to be 
more old-fashioned (log-in), or one word if you want to be more 
progressive (login). We should pick one -- I kind of like the one-word 
approach, since it's simpler and less prone to provoking head scratching 
about hyphenation.

"Please go to the Cosmo Login page."
"He tried to bypass the login, but was denied."
"What is your login ID?"

Also -- and this is more debatable -- since action words are kind of the 
ideal for unambiguous button names (Save, Apply, Submit, Cancel, Close), 
labeling the button "Log In" is more correct -- it says what you do when 
you click it.

Of course the other alternative for the button name would be to sidestep 
all those questions, and label it "Submit."

Actually, until today the prompt for the login page still said "Enter a 
username and password, and click the Submit button." At some point the 
name of the button changed, but the prompt did not get updated.

2. Logout

Same as above

3. Signup

Same as above. Verb form is "sign up," two words. Noun/adjective is 
either "sign-up" or "signup." This is one where you might want to lean 
toward the hyphen, because of that weird 'g' in the middle. It doesn't 
bother me that much though.

Verb

"You have to sign up for an account to use the app."
"You haven't signed up yet."
"He's signing up for an account now."

Noun/adjective

"He started the signup process, but his browser quit on him."
"Please go to the Signup page and enter your account information."
"We had fifty quazillion signups our first day!"

Again, the button label should probably be "Sign Up," if we want to 
follow convention of using verbs where we can -- or again, just go with 
the still fairly unambiguous "Submit" instead and blow off any controversy.

See y'all Monday. :)


Matthew