It is beautiful and it's a tough problem to solve--the login/signup is a big cause of friction and confusion to users.

I would wonder how many users notice the "Sign Up" link or read it as "Sign In" and not understand how to proceed.

The distinction between username and email is lost on a lot of people, unless you expect accounts to outlive emails and the value of having an account is worth this friction (think Dropbox or online banking) then use an email or phone instead.

I do wonder if for most apps a two-step process is easier: enter your email/phone to continue, if that exists ask them to logon or otherwise create an account. I realize there are concerns about account enumeration, which are valid, but end up being overly hostile to the user (plus most registration flows leak anyway).

Thats a good idea! I might try that.

Visiting my mother-in-law the other day I helped her with a TV on demand "app" built into her TV. For some reason it needed her to log in again and she was stuck. She had successfully entered her email and password (I was surprised and impressed), but had absolutely no inkling of the final step required - moving the pointer to the button marked "login" and pressing it. So easy to forget that a tech-centric mental model can be completely alien to "normal" people, especially older people.

Hey! Thank you for your response. I agree with you that "sign up" isn't the best way to represent a register view, but if I were to name it "register," it wouldn't be that identical since I'm using a big font.

Consider "Sign in" and "New user"

Maybe wording that explains better what each of them does? Like "Create a new account" and "Log into my account"?

Wouldn't fit in the UI as designed unless you broke each button into two lines though.

My head always struggles with "Sign up" and "Sign in"...best example for me - https://www.digitalocean.com [1]

[1] https://i.imgur.com/fAS7rfz.png

Step 1: ask user to enter their email.

Step 2: if that email exists in the database, ask for password. Otherwise confirm with the user that they are new to the site. Then ask for password twice.

Step 3: done.

Yep, this user flow bifurcation is nothing but confusing for people.

I avoid it and have found people are far less confused