Tiny Fail: 37Signals’ Basecamp Login

I’d like to add a new feature here, which I’m going to call Tiny Fail. They are the little things that cause a small amount of annoyance to the people that use our websites.

First up, 37Signals. I’m a big fan of theirs. We use Basecamp here at John Carroll University and it’s really helped up re-organize. I’ve got Rework and learned a ton from it.

We’ve just started working a design firm to help us redesign the JCu website. They use Basecamp, and added me as a user. The ability to have accounts in multiple Basecamp instances is nice, and they do a good job of letting me switch between accounts.

When I got the invite email from Basecamp, I was taken to a screen that let me create a new account, or login with my existing 37signals account. I chose that I had an existing account and was taken to this form:

Screenshot

It’s clean and easy to use, but there’s a tiny fail.

The “Use OpenID” is the link that’s tabbed to after name. 99 times out 100, tabbing takes you to the next form field. I fill out so many login forms a day, I type in my username, tab, type password, and hit enter. I did it this morning, only slightly paying attention. Before I knew it, I was taken to an OpenID page. I had to go back a few screens and start again.

Why not move the OpenID login choice near the submit button, so that if someone is looking for that method of sign-in, it’s there, but it doesn’t interfere if I want to quickly enter my existing credentials.

Just a little thing that bugged me this morning.

3 thoughts on “Tiny Fail: 37Signals’ Basecamp Login”

  1. I’m not sure, but can’t you specify tab order in HTML? Then you don’t even need to move the link.

  2. Agree, though not as bad as the Google Wave preview, where IIRC the tab didn’t work at all and the presenter typed the password in front of the whole conference and half the web.

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