Things Developers Should Just Do: Part 1

 

Things Developers Should Just Do: Part 1

Without being asked and without the need for Jira Issues

July 10, 2020

Talking with a friend recently, he told me what a “buzz kill” it was when his development team finally delivered a working version of his new app and when he hit the enter key on his shiny new login screen, nothing happened!

So one has to ask, just what UI/UX conventions and features should a developer simply implement without being asked in formal requirements?

I thought I’d tackle the Login/Sign In screen first. I’ll cover other UI/UX conventions in subsequent blog posts.  I welcome feedback and additions to this list if you have ideas on things I may have missed.

The Login Screen:

How many elements can actually exist on the seemingly simple login screen? Let’s see how many we can come up with, shall we?

  1. Design and layout, static text: What should we tell the user about the login screen they are on? What kind of labels do we want? There are all kinds of fancy ways to label data entry fields these days; outside the data entry box, inside the box, to the left, above? If they are inside the data entry box, what happens when I begin typing? Does the label disappear? 

  2. User ID: well duh! But now you have a choice. Do you accept the User ID and have a Next button and validate it before asking for the Password? Decisions decisions.

  3. Password: Always required. Do you warn the user if their CAPS Lock is on?

  4. The eyeball icon: Show me what I typed. Password strength has required us to create “strong passwords.” Re-keying that jumbled series of letters, numbers, upper case, lower case, and special characters has become a frustrating nightmare. This feature allows you to see the dang thing!

  5. Forgot my password: This is essential and should always just be there. People will forget their password and need an easy to follow process to create a new password. 

  6. A Button: What should it say? Sign in? Login? Next? Just do it?

  7. The <enter> key: Always enable the <enter key> on a login page. Think about it, how many times a day do you login to various apps? When you are on a PC, you type your user ID and password and instinctively hit Enter. 

  8. Error message: So the login attempt failed. Geee, I wonder why? Was it the user ID? The password? Both? What should we tell the user? “Hey fat fingers, we don’t know who you are, try again.” Or, do you change the label (if it’s still visible) red?

  9. Two Factor Authentication: This one is optional but is gaining in popularity. 

So there you have it. The seemingly simple login screen. How many more objects can you come up with that could possibly make it onto a login screen?

 
Cary Peele2 Comments