New year, new experiment: Login and Signup UI

I don't like the email and password placeholder. Either make the placeholder "Email" and "Password", or get rid of it altogether. It doesn't really add anything useful as is. Your users don't need an example of what an email address should look like, and you certainly don't want to imply that a password might be 12345!

Otherwise it's a good clean improvement.

That's how I would regroup log in parts:

Also, I would like to see usual top bar there:

And instead of the SE logo and "A network of 133 Q&A communities", the usual site header, footer and the background.

Why to do it of so different design comparing to other pages?

The new login UI promotes Google/Facebook and weakens a healthy OpenID culture. This is unfortunate.

The previous one was some iteration of this...

now changed into this:

The change is of the meta-message is essentially:

• before: "hey did you know that with OpenID you can accept users already existing logins from other sites? Ain't it nice?"
• after: "GOOGLE FACEBOOK (EMAIL) ((losers' entrance))"

Disclaimer: I am aware that the stackexchange openID is not an "email". However, the current new UI promotes what is essentially fooling users by letting them be the cargo-cult follower they were modelled as, to continue to think that this is the case. And never ever mind them the open part about openID.

What's essentially wrong with Gmail as Facebook as OpenID providers, making them the worst choice to be promoted?

• google provides openID
• google does not accept openID provided by others
• facebook: same case

While openID providers can theoretically of course choose whether to let users use other provider's openID, this is not the dominant issue here. The dominant issue is that these two providers are massive monopolies in the openID market and their tactics seem dangerously fit in a strategy reminding one of Embrace, Extend and Extinguish. Honestly StackExchange used to be the Fair Cool Guy here, now with this move, it's slowly slipping to under the dominance of the above two monopolistic giants.

The difference about the old UI was that it visually featured all OpenID providers equally. On the meta level this constituted as an experience that allowed users to learn about what essentially is OpenID and what's great about it as a 'free market' kind of community.

The new UI radically changes this by hiding the essence of OpenID and turning the already unbalanced table to the benefit of the unfair players.

Please, let yourself promote a fair and healthy community of OpenID by taking providers equally and presenting them as such.

I'm repeating myself (I requested that before for the old UI)…

Please make the interface less confusing and inconvenient for those of us who don't use Google, Facebook or Stack Exchange as their OpenID provider. Even knowing the problem with the old UI, the first time I saw the new login screen, I was puzzled as to where I should be entering my credentials.

It's confusing to see a login prompt which I can't actually use, and to have to click on a small link which makes the text box that I can actually use appear. The “more login options��� link only makes one text box and a row of icons. Show everything from the onset, but with more vertical space between the SE login lines and the OpenID options (and it would make sense to group the external login options, instead of going Google/Facebook, then SE-own, then other external options).

As far as the styling is concerned, it took me by surprise. I have no objection to the new design, but it looks weird because it's completely unlike anything from Stack Exchange. The first time I saw it, I wondered what was going on, partly because I wasn't expecting an SE login prompt in the first place, but also because the page didn't look like something from SE (unlike the old one).

By the way, did you log people out randomly to test this? I've had to log in several times the past few days, from browser instances where I'd been logged in for ages, and only on seemingly-random sites (even ones that I'd used the day before).

First the good: much better then the original! :-)

Then: I don't mind the email place holder, but do mind the 12345... Although it is one of the world's most popular passwords SE started out as SO, and most of us here have convinced mum to use one that's better then 12345.

My advice: Use "Email" or "User name" and "Password" as place holders. We're in the 21st century. Everyone knows what an email or user name is including people who don't even have a computer. ;-)

Beta logos don't work, just an empty blue logo:

FWIW, a little feedback. I found myself in the test group yesterday.

Normally, I log on to StackExchange.com, then open my pages on the other SE sites, and I'm automatically logged on to my different SE sites.
Sometimes, I have to click "log in" on one of these sites before being logged in, but after that the page loads and I'm logged in. No need to enter my password.

Yesterday, I had to enter my credentials for each SE site separately.

I suppose this was just a consequence of the system still being tested. If it is part of the new workflow, I don't like it - I prefer not to have to enter my credentials on each site separately.

I think the design looks nice and clear in general.

A few words on the lines: I have a really hard time seeing the lines next to OR (the text itself too), and the lines around the input boxes.

I suggest to make them a little darker so they are better visible.

This is nice and simplified and a vast improvement on the UX. From experience, it may be a good idea to show the rules for passwords even for users logging in. Many users use multiple passwords across many sites and presenting the rules for a password they created in the past may help them remember without having to go through the route of 'forgot password'.