Saturday, September 02, 2006

And this was the disaster.

The Design of Everyday Login Boxes
In his landmark book The Design of Everyday Things, Donald Norman writes:
The human mind is exquisitely tailored to make sense of the world. Give it the slightest clue and off it goes, providing explanation, rationalization, understanding. … Well-designed objects are easy to interpret and understand. They contain visible clues to their operation. Poorly designed objects can be difficult or frustrating to use. They provide no clues–or sometimes false clues. They trap the user and thwart the normal process of interpretation and understanding.
With that, we say good-bye to the combined Blogger / Google Accounts sign-in box on our homepage. Functional? Quite (though not everyone believes me). Well-designed? Not a chance. We’ve listened to the problems with our combined login box, and we have a solution.

The new login choice on the homepage should relieve any Google Accounts–related login trouble you may have. And if you’re like me and still haven’t been able to switch to the beta, you’ll be relieved that your password manager will stop trying to fill in your Google Account login information on Blogger.

Sincere apologies to everyone who was a victim of our bad design and had trouble or even couldn’t log in. We goofed on this one, and we’re sorry.
Pete Hopkins [09/02/2006 10:45 AM]

So, since I have created a new blog, and have sent it out to my friends and family, I'll keep using the new blog. Hey, sometimes change can be a good thing.


3 comments:

Melissa said...

Funny that you posted this, because just yesterday I was reading about the beta and considering switching...but, after reading the known problems they were having, I decided to hold off.

James said...

That was probably a good idea. But the catch was, I didn't switch. I was switched. Like forcefully.

So now I have the beta. It works, I can blog again, and I'm more or less happy, after that initial frustration.

Melissa said...

Wow, I didn't realize they "forced" you in to switching...especially before they have all the kinks worked out! It must be because your a google user. I have a google account, but rarely use it. The one thing I liked about the beta is that you can control who views your blog. So, once they've got the kinks out of it I will most like switch (unless I don't have a choice and have to sooner like you)!