Forum OpenACS Q&A: Update to /register/index.adp content

This appears in the index.adp page:

If you keep getting thrown back here, it is probably because your browser does not accept cookies. We're sorry for the inconvenience but it really is impossible to program a system like this without keeping track of who is posting what.

I think the part in bold needs to change to something more meaningful for non-developers - while it's true that developers will mostly be reading this at first, if a non-developer reads this it may cause some apprehension. The issues are - just what is meant by "a system like this" and what do you mean you are "keeping track". I just ran into this with a friend I was showing the registration process to and had to explain since he doen't understand at all about oacs, cookies or what it does. I have also seen this page used as is on some production systems...

I propose that this be changed. If anyone has suggestions please post them here. In know this is a minor detail in the overall scheme of things, but how did that saying go - God is in the details?

I will also be updating the old browser instructions for turning cookies on. If at all possible, please respond by this pm eastern time as I will be submitting updates this evening.

Thanks for taking the time to submit your opinion.

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Posted by Lars Pind on
Randy,

I totally agree that our registration pages are crap. There are lots of other things about them I'd like to change.

Mark Goodexperience Hurst once convinced me that the most usable registration/login pages are Amazon's, so I'd like to clone those. The current plan is to do so while we do external authentication.

http://www.collaboraid.biz/developer/ext-auth-spec

/Lars

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Posted by Eric Wolfram on
I always thought the most usable login was the old photo.net site :-p but what do I know? I'll have to check out Amazon soon. I remember liking paypal's login a while back -- I like their faq too.

About that verbage on getting users to update their cookies on IE 4.0 (which is on the current login screen.) I put stuff like that in my faq where it belongs and provide a link to the information from the login page, ie:

http://mytlc.com/register/

Have a good one!

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Posted by Randy Ferrer on

I do agree with Lars that the registration pages are really in need of a major overhaul (I'll shy away from using his expletive). 😊)) I happen to like Amazon's system myself since it's very user friendly and simple. As far as explaining how to turn on cookies... Personally I think we could do without it - perhaps just refer users to help on their browsers. In the US browsers have cookies turned on by default. In other countries they come with cookies turned off by default. In any case, if a person turned off their cookies, then they should know how to turn them back on. If we do want to include this information, then it should be in the "Saving email address and password" page which BTW - works really hard to not mention the word "cookie". I vote for speaking clearly to users. Just explain clearly that cookies are utilized and how we use them and then if it's really desired, include an explanation of how to access the feature on browsers. Also, what's with the link to the "Saving email address and password" page? (help)??

My goal here was not to overhaul the system, but to simply touch up some of these pages - nothing more for now.

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Posted by Lars Pind on
Randy,

I understand that your immediate goal here is more limited. Go for it!

/Lars