1049982 - Prompted to create account with username or email address which is already in use

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(developer.mozilla.org Graveyard :: Sign-in, defect)

Description

[Stephanie Hobson [:shobson]]

Attachment: Screen Shot 2014-08-06 at 17.15.07.png

When logging in with GitHub for the first time I was prompted to create an MDN account with a username and email address that were already taken.

If the user's GitHub username/email is already taken but they do not want to link to an existing account we should leave the field blank with a note that they can't use the same one as they do on GitHub.

Comment 1

[Jannis Leidel [:jezdez]]

This is related to bug #1036129. We can't right now merge accounts per se as it means we'd have to rewrite the ownership of all db entries like wiki pages, demo submissions etc. Instead we should explain the user to login first and then redirect to the connect workflow instead of the signup process for Github.

Comment 2

[Justin Crawford [:hoosteeno] [:jcrawford]]

Can we get a flowchart depicting what should happen here? Can just be a sketch, but it sounds complex enough that we should model it. This will also help us understand what copy or other assets we need.

Comment 3

[Stephanie Hobson [:shobson]]

I think we need to do three things:

1) Make changes to the Create Account page providing users information on how to connect GitHub to an existing account.

2) Detect matching usernames and email addresses and prompt users to connect accounts.

3) If a matching username or email is detected and the user doesn't want to associate the two accounts, not pre-fill the username and email fields.

I will provide a user flow and some mockups for this on Tuesday.

Comment 4

[Jannis Leidel [:jezdez]]

:shobson All of these points are easy to implement, they have in fact much in common with bug #1036129.

For 3) I just wanted to suggest that adding a number or something similar to the end of the proposed username in case of a match with an existing user may be sensible as well. Or is that a UX anti-pattern from the 90s?

Comment 5

[Stephanie Hobson [:shobson]]

:jezdez I wouldn't want to add the number for them, I'd prefer they picked something relevant to themselves so they can remember it.

Comment 6

[Stephanie Hobson [:shobson]]

Attachment: no-account-found

I like the work :jezdez has been doing to make it so that the user can click a link and sign in with persona to associate their accounts (without signing in to github again!) 

This is the first of a few mockups for how that link should be presented. This case is if there does not appear to be a MDN account.

Comment 7

[Stephanie Hobson [:shobson]]

Attachment: github-account-detected

If we think the user has an existing account, here's how we can prompt them to connect it.

Comment 8

[Stephanie Hobson [:shobson]]

Attachment: duplicate-email-or-username-error-messages

If the user submits the form and we detect a problem here are the error messages to display with links to help them sort out the problem.

The "recover your account" email is intended to link to a form that no longer exists (as discussed on bug #1036129) and might have to chance as a result of the discussion there.

:jezdez and I discussed moving the errors inline and I still think that is the best thing to do, but it was faster for me to make the mockup using the existing display ;)

Comment 9

[Luke Crouch [:groovecoder]]

(In reply to Stephanie Hobson [:shobson] from comment #6)
> Created attachment 8471256 [details]
> no-account-found
> 
> I like the work :jezdez has been doing to make it so that the user can click
> a link and sign in with persona to associate their accounts (without signing
> in to github again!) 
> 
> This is the first of a few mockups for how that link should be presented.
> This case is if there does not appear to be a MDN account.

:shobson - without "popping" the design straight to design hell [1], is there a way to make it more noticeable? This is the prompt that will preempt them from entering "dual account limbo" so I personally want to err on a more prominent prompt here to save them from the nightmare UX of dual accounts. :/

And/or, :jezdez - do we scan *all* the user's GitHub emails to check for an existing MDN account?

[1] http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell

Comment 10

[Jannis Leidel [:jezdez]]

:groovecoder, yes, we do (if they are verified on Github): https://github.com/mozilla/kuma/pull/2647/files#diff-fb446f2bc8a4fef46cf69ccb0b13f7cbR350

Comment 11

[Stephanie Hobson [:shobson]]

(In reply to Luke Crouch [:groovecoder] from comment #9)

> :shobson - without "popping" the design straight to design hell [1], is
> there a way to make it more noticeable? 

Are you concerned about the no match found state or about all the states?

Comment 12

[Luke Crouch [:groovecoder]]

Just the "no match found" state. Just want to make *extra* sure that the user really doesn't have an existing MDN account to discourage them from accidentally creating a new MDN account if they already have one.

Comment 13

[Stephanie Hobson [:shobson]]

:groovecoder I think a user with an existing account will either:

1) be actively looking for a way to connect accounts
2) try to use the same username 
3) try to use the same email address

Either way we will catch them. #fingerscrossed

I don't want to throw bright stuff at the users creating new accounts if we have no reason to.

That said, we have a strong use case for making this pop for the first month or so after implementing it. We could A/B test displaying the yellow banner for "no account detected" for the first week and then continue with the best option after that. I would want to track which banner got more clicks as well as which banner caused more drop-offs in the sign in process. Not sure the second one is possible? :openjck?

Comment 15

[Jannis Leidel [:jezdez]]

I've implemented the mockups :shobson has proposed here in pull request https://github.com/mozilla/kuma/pull/2647

Please see the list of things I've done in its pull request description.

Comment 16

[Jannis Leidel [:jezdez]]

Also, as you can see, I've rolled in the changes from bug #1036129 into this as it was overlapping code changes quite a bit. The original PR was https://github.com/mozilla/kuma/pull/2658.

Comment 17

[John Karahalis [:openjck]]

(In reply to Stephanie Hobson [:shobson] from comment #13)
> :groovecoder I think a user with an existing account will either:
> 
> 1) be actively looking for a way to connect accounts
> 2) try to use the same username 
> 3) try to use the same email address
> 
> Either way we will catch them. #fingerscrossed
> 
> I don't want to throw bright stuff at the users creating new accounts if we
> have no reason to.
> 
> That said, we have a strong use case for making this pop for the first month
> or so after implementing it. We could A/B test displaying the yellow banner
> for "no account detected" for the first week and then continue with the best
> option after that. I would want to track which banner got more clicks as
> well as which banner caused more drop-offs in the sign in process. Not sure
> the second one is possible? :openjck?

It should be possible to test both of these. What should the variations be? One bright yellow banner and one more subdued banner, like in comment 9?

Comment 18

[Stephanie Hobson [:shobson]]

:openjck that's exactly what I was thinking. You just need to add the class "warning" to the grey notification to make it into the yellow one.

Comment 19

[Stephanie Hobson [:shobson]]

Importing :groovecoder's comments from https://github.com/mozilla/kuma/pull/2647:

> The sign-up page showed me: 
> 1. error message that my github username was taken, 
> 2. strike-thru styling on my email to indicate it was taken, and 
> 3. MDN found an existing account. mdn-existing-user-signup While it gave me lots of information, it feels a little disjointed. 
> Is there any way we can combine these 3 pieces of information into a single prominent display. "HEY! WE ARE 99% SURE WE FOUND YOUR EXISTING MDN ACCOUNT. PLEASE CONNECT IT!"

Comment 20

[Stephanie Hobson [:shobson]]

Attachment: github-account-detected

How in their face do we want to be about this? 

We could go so far as to block account creation until they've looked their avatar in the face and denied that it's them. (see attachment).

Comment 21

[Jannis Leidel [:jezdez]]

:shobson +1 on being bold, less surprises that way, too

Comment 22

[Luke Crouch [:groovecoder]]

+1 on being bold and I like that big prompt there.

:shobson - can you copy that mock-up as a follow-up bug? Your choice whether it should block production launch.

Comment 23

[Stephanie Hobson [:shobson]]

Created Bug #1055207 for follow up. Closing this one.

Comment 24

[John Karahalis [:openjck]]

I haven't been able to prioritize those A/B tests yet. In light of bug 1054449, do we still want to run them?

Comment 25

[Stephanie Hobson [:shobson]]

Well, part of me is still interested in an academic way whether or not a grey message gets more attention than a yellow one but, no, we do not need these tests anymore.