Where do I login?
If you're familiar with Basecamp or Backpack (both from 37signals), you know that when you sign up you're given a special URL to login to your account. It's usually something like "username.backpackit.com."
Let's say that you haven't used Backpack in a while and you go the homepage and find the login link (which is tiny and easily missed) but when you go to the Backpack login page, instead of a login form, you're given instructions about your login URL.
Personally, I've never liked this system. I don't use Basecamp or Backpack very often and always forget to bookmark my login URL and am always frustrated when I can't login from the login page.
Tonight I was trying out StikiPad and found that they give users a login url, but they also allow you to login right from their homepage.
I'm a big fan of 37signals, but on this point I think StikiPad does it better.
I think the biggest factor here is the possibility of a user having multiple accounts. So, on stikipad I can login with my email and password, but what if that email and password is also associated with several other accounts? Which account does it log you in to?
At Clear Function we recently built an application called Pulse. We use the same URL structure for login (accountname.pulseapp.com). However, we couldn't provide a universal login unless we also asked for their account, which if they already know that - then they know their URL.
We provided an 'account reminder' feature that we link to from the home page. Here you can put in your email address and we will email you all accounts that you are subscribed to, with links and your login info. If you ever forget it, you can easily get it at a quick glance.
How would you propose a login system like this work - where users could have multiple accounts with the same username/password?
Nate,
What you could do is offer a "universal" login on your main site. So if a user forgets their specific account name, they can login in with their username/password, and be presented with a welcome page listing the accounts that user is attached to. Then the account they're looking for is just a click away.