Breaking News: According to a recent study, People respond better to being treated like a human.
Not really that surprised but who would of thought?
Recently I’ve been working on developing YouAreU’s password reset form, so to get some ideas of how other people do it I visited two different “social networks” which I’ve censored their identity for their protection. We will call them Subject A & Subject B.
Now we will observe their copy, method of security, and how simple it is for those who are attempting to reset their password.
Copy
Subject A - will send the password reset instructions to the email address associated with your account. Copy is basic, most commonly seen as most reset instructions.
Subject B - Before we can reset your password, you need to enter the information below to help identify your account. Copy seems a bit misleading - The site seems to be saying that they will be the one resetting your password. I don’t want someone else issuing me a new password.
Method of Security
Subject A - Will send the reset to the email of whoever registered with the account.
Subject B - After identifying your account, it will send an email to the registered account, however the forms of identification seems odd - Since when does knowing my name and the name of a friend seem as a valid form of identification?
“Ease Of Use”
Subject A - The only real annoyance is the having to fill out the captcha to prove that you are human.
Subject B - While given multiple forms of identifying who you are, it also adds to the confusion. Also, afterwards you also still need to fill out a captcha.
After all of that, I noticed that these “social networks” seem to distance them self from the most important person using their networks. So I wrote the following draft and asked people how they felt.
Forgot Your Password?
It happens, we’re only human so we’ll try to make this as painless as possible. Just type in the Username or E-mail address you used to register on the site and we will send a reset link so you can enter a new one. We can’t tell you what your old password was because we care about your privacy.
And this is what I got back -
“…that message seems so personal, it seems like somebody was sitting there typing it. But I suppose that’s just the conditioning of robot statements that almost everybody uses…I would certainly like a service more if it seemed to take the time out of the day to help me, and not just iterate the same “We sent a confirmation email to reset your password.” - Christopher Byrd
and this
“It would make me feel warm & fuzzy inside, like the mystery box was my friend that day instead of a necessary evil of existence out to frustrate & taunt me” - Rozine Mosler
As you can see, people tend to feel better about what they are using if you take the time to care and not treat them like they are the next number in line.
