GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 397852
Login is unnecessarily confusing (should mention email address)
Last modified: 2015-06-14 16:47:10 UTC
Every single time I've tried to log into Bugzilla, I've been thoroughly confused by it asking for an "Account" and password, and not the "email address" that it apparently uses to identify me. The first time this happened, I went so far as to request a new password, and -that's- when it dawned on me that you wanted an email address---and why? Because -that- form complains if it can't find an atsign in the so-called "Account" name, hence it's obviously looking for an email address. But the actual box you'd type a so-called "Account" name into in order to log in doesn't complain a bit if there's no @ there, so it just misleads users into thinking they've forgotten their password instead of informing them that Bugzilla wants their email address instead.) Since peoples' accounts may be different from their email addresses (mine sure is), it's incredibly confusing to use the word "Account" in all the login forms when it's an email address you're after. Either change the word to "Email address", change the logic to "name of account", or allow either one to be entered. (I'm sure regular users never notice this precisely -because- they're regular users, but for occasional bug submitters enough time goes by that the misleading "Account" prompt is forgotten until the next time---whereupon either steam shoots out of someone's ears, or you just lose the bugreport entirely because they get pissed off and go away and you never hear about the failures. It might be interesting [if the data's logged anywhere] to see just how many people try to enter something without an atsign into the Account box.) Other information:
The current login page asks for "Login:" and before that says "I need a legitimate login and password to continue." IMHO this is still quite confusing. (Wasn't this the same story with GNOME's session login, where some Usability study complaint that users didn't know what they were asked for when the screen said "Login:"?) Since the form asks for the user's registered email address, the form should simply say so. Eventually, please try to replace the nouns "account" and "login" by "email address" everywhere on the login pages, or at least add "(your email address)" there. Like this: Bugzilla needs a legitimate login name (your email address) and password to continue. Your email adress: Password:
Makes sense. Should really go upstream, though. And I believe upstream is planning on introducing an actual login/account name, and using it as the user handle instead of the email address (thus allowing us to hide email addresses better than we currently do as well). I'll leave it open for Olav to decide how he wants to handle the bug, since he knows more about upstream plans...
Still open, and the login screen still asks for "Login:", which confuses me again each time I have to use that screen. Is there something wrong with my proposal in comment#1? If not, would you please consider using this? Or where upstream should I report this?
Upstream is http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/; product Bugzilla. It is a good proposal.. I just don't have time.
Seems like upstream already asks for "E-mail address:" instead of "Login:", so this is probably fixed by any of the upcoming updates.
No it is not. bugzilla.mozilla.org is customized.
Yeah, this request should definitely go upstream. We could add a tooltip or something. I think there might already be a bug upstream for this, even.
Upstream is https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=240845
*** Bug 698903 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I too find it confusing when the field says "Login" but i can't use my username. On https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/ the field says "email address" which is better. Also the placeholder text "login" goes away from the field when you select it, and does not come back even if you write something and delete the text like placeholders often do.
I'm not sure which additional value the last comment was supposed to add (I could not find anything new), so I refer again to comment 8 here.
I dont know what upstream is but on the link is sounds like its up to bugzilla.gnome.org to change "login" to "e-mail" if the site only allows to login using e-mail.
The upstream link that I pasted in comment 8 says that it is supported to get changed in Bugzilla version 5.0. And GNOME Bugzilla is running Bugzilla 4.4.