Re:Use Dropdown Login Boxes for a Faster Login
by bmelton on Friday September 10, 2010 @08:06AM
(#1678577)
That makes sense, and says what I've felt/intuited (but never known for sure).
I typically put a username / password box on any pages I want people to be logged in for. Now, obviously, this includes pages that they must be logged in for, but those pages should enforce authentication more strictly; But what I really mean are the pages that don't 'require' authentication, but for any number of reasons, it is preferred.
Also, I've always believed that the 'two boxes on a page' approach draws them torwards the login, and acts more as a call to action than Twitter's dropdown approach.
As alabut says though, use where appropriate.
Depends on the design, goals and intended audience.
Form fields are harder to ignore than most page elements and have a sort of gravitational pull on the eyeballs, so you can easily imagine situations where it's better to avoid them. Like, say, on public marketing pages for first time visitors to a microblogging app that's way hard to explain to your average non-blogging Yahoo-using grandma in flyover country.