Regi: emails, captcha, nicks and pwd ...

Megaplan’s corporate Twitter subscribers already know that a long-awaited personal planner is already on the way. It will not be called Time-Manager, as previously assumed, but Miniplan . Internal testing is already underway, and it's time to make it accessible from the outside. But it remains to make a few touches and the fattest stroke on the way to publicity - a usable form of this registration.


It should be noted that the megaplanes conceived to make a very easy-to-use product (and also free), but perfectionism has a downside. It all started with the fact that several managers could not agree on how the registration should look like. In order to persuade opponents to their side, they began to draw programmers, designers, and marketing specialists into an argument ... As a result, the number of alternatives turned into three, four, and so on. Even the recent publication and discussion on Habré did not help.
As a result, we decided to bring the issue to Habr for the widest discussion and vote. So, there are the following registration alternatives:

Option "A"

Option for supporters of laconicism. When registering, the user leaves the mail address and fills in the captcha field. Then it is enough just to send an email to the user in which to report everything essential (URL for verification, password, address of the personal page of the Miniplan, and so on). Having applied the “nicname == e-mail” formula, login to the system is done by simply entering a password. You can go even further and make identification through cookies.

Arguments for:

• Simplicity and conciseness.

Arguments against:

• You can get to work only after waiting for the mail, and this pause may be significant.
• Some (and even many) have several mailboxes for different purposes. If the service is not used regularly, then you can simply forget which of the boxes was registered. This makes it difficult to recover a password.
• It is not always convenient (and not everyone can) copy the generated machine password from mail to the browser.

Option "B"

A bit complicated version. The user fills in the fields: nickname, mail and captcha.

Arguments for:

• Moderate laconism with more "routine" registration procedure.
• The probability that the user will forget his nickname is reduced, as people have a commitment to use the same nicknames for different Internet resources and services.
• Nickname can be used to address the user's personal page.

Arguments against:

• There remains the need to wait for mail to receive a URL check and passport.
• It is not always convenient (and not everyone can) copy the generated machine password from mail to the browser.

Option "B"

The standard procedure is when a user is asked to fill in a field with a nickname, email, password (twice) and is asked to pass a captcha.

Arguments for:

• It is familiar.
• You can start working inside the system immediately, without waiting for the confirmation letter to fall into the box, and the verification URL will be clicked.

Arguments against:

• Fill in the five fields of the form, it’s already two (as in option “A”) and not three (as in option “B”)
• If during registration a wrong address is accidentally indicated, then no one will ever be able to recover the password in case of forgetfulness. In addition, some functionality of the service (for example, notification from the Miniplan) will be unavailable. If, however, you have to wait for confirmation of the mail through URL checks, then the opportunity to start work immediately disappears.

Option "G"

Some transitional option. In the password form, they request the same nickname, mail, password and confirmation of captcha, but some hidden machine-generated code has already been entered into the password field. The user can replace it (with confirmation) and can leave everything as is.

Arguments for:

• This is similar to the usual registration form.
• It is not necessary to invent a password and remember it right now. It will be sent to the post office and will be needed when the cookies have gone bad.

Arguments against:

• You must wait for the URL check through the mail.

Actually, it would be possible to proceed to the voting, but there is also the option “omega”.

Option "Ѡ"

We use OpenID, GoogleID, OpenSotial and similar fashionable identification methods.

Arguments for:

• Everything is very simple, very fashionable and modern.

Arguments against

• In case the user "does not have registration on Facebook, LJ, Twitter and vaasche", you still have to provide the usual way of registration and choose between "A", "B", "C" and "T".
• All these “social-idi” make sense if there are applications for the corresponding networks and / or methods of interaction with them are embedded in them. In the current version of the Mini Plan nothing will happen. This means that the user will not feel the benefits of OpenID.

And now, vote

In fact, the voting did not solve much. The argument for this or that option is important. Surely there are more options and they also would like to consider. So we argue for / against and answer yes / no / don’t know ... We remind you of the options:

• Option "A" (mail + captcha)
• Option "B" (login, mail + captcha)
• Option “B” (login, email, passport twice + captcha)
• Option "G" (login, email, machine passport + captcha)
• Option "Ѡ" (any of the options above or OpenID)