Registration and Log-in Flow Benjamin Melançon agaric.com & dgd7.org

The Problem If you're doing something cool with your site, people logging in is really important. No one actually likes registering for sites. People will be somewhere in your site when they decide to do something– leave a comment, upload media, or buy something. The currently have to hold that thought while they go somewhere else and register and find their way back to what they were

Scenario 1"You said something dumb! I'm going to tell you how wrong you are!" 2"I have to register on your site to leave a comment? If only I had my own site, I'd libel you on that. But I don't so I'll log in." 3"I've been through your stupid registration, verified my , and I've forgotten the one constructive thing I had to say and am leaving nothing but vitriol." reality edition

Scenario 1Mary thinks: "Your blog post is really interesting. I'd like to leave a comment." 2She is halfway through leaving a comment when she notices the plague of Unverifieds in the other comments and doesn't want to be one of them. 3She copies her comment into a text file because she knows even if she logs in at another tab, she'll still have to reload the page where she is commenting. nice user edition

Scenario 4Mary cannot remember for sure if she has gone through your registration and CAPTCHA, so she tries the login form. 5She has forgotten either her or password, because she is a normal human. Drupal is almost helpful here, asking her "Have you forgotten your password?" nice user edition continued

Scenario 4Mary follows the link to the Request new password page. 5Her username has been erased, she briefly wonders if you and your web site and Drupal hate her, and types in her name again. nice user edition continued

Scenario 6She has her username wrong or she has not yet registered on the site. Either way, she now clicks over to the Create new account tab. 7If she did have an account but had her username wrong when asking for her password, she would get big errors here. Repeat process. nice user edition continued

Catch 22 If you allow anonymous comments, it is easier to leave an anonymous comment than it is to log in and leave a comment as The Real You TM

kthxbai Default behavior: cannot do anything until approved manually.

Current Behavior

What Registration or Log in Should Be ► Easy ► Part of the flow of engaging with the site or re-engaging with the site.

People Don't Want to Connect to Your Web Site The Web and Drupal are about connecting people. Connecting to your site must not get in their way.

Hello, Mary! 1. Thank you for leaving your comment.

End Separate Pages The options Log in or Register should be radio buttons within one form, and this form should be able to work with the submit button of any form it is placed in

Pluggable Back End Anything that we can imagine must be able to go through core's form. OpenID, Facebook Connect, Twitter, Google, Ostatus(?), etc. etc. etc. People cannot be expected to decide/remember what they are logging in with before they start.

Streamline OpenID login

Have more thoughts later? ► i'm here all week ► ► agaric.com/contact ► mlncn on IRC ► very next session! BoF on Coordinating Community Projects in the Erie room at 5:45pm, and a Code Sprint for Login & Registration Flow would be a perfect pilot. Thanks!

Proposed Sprint Next slot, 5:45pm, talking about coordinating community projects— which includes modules or core patches that many agree are important, but the organization of resources to make it happen does not necessarily happen.