"Login" is terrible (and you should feel bad for suggesting bad UX as though it was right).
Users want to provide their identity credentials to access your site and verify who they are. They do that via an electronic signature which is their username and password.
Therefore they want to "Sign In" with their signature.
The fact that you're 'logging' their signature is secondary to their needs. And as far as making a compound word out of "log" and "in"... well that's stupid (and wow... "Logout" is a new verb created just so you can leave a website securely? Try explaining what that is to someone who has never used the internet... 'no it's not street slang for going to the toilet').
As for your 'more effort to visually distinguish' between "Sign In" and "Sign up", you already solved that problem. "Sign in" and "Register" are the winners.
And we don't have to involve any lumps of wood (or new verbs that suggest bowel movements).
Once you've registered your signature with the site, the next time you arrive, you merely provide your signature. Register and then Sign In.
> "Login" is terrible (and you should feel bad for suggesting bad UX as though it was right).
seconded
I also agree that "register" is a great alternate to "sign up."
My original intent in responding to this thread is to help educate HN readers between data and opinion when it comes to "good UX." As a designer I've had opinions about these things for years, as we all have. But not all of us have had the opportunity to test our ui lexicon in front of millions of users. So while we might think "oh, register makes more sense," I am simply offering that no, in fact, it did not. "Sign up" was the most commonly-expected term for participating in the system as a non-user. "Register" was viewed as more committal, technical, involved.
That's interesting. We did an extensive series of A/B tests a while back between "Registrieren", "Anmelden" and a specific call to action (this was a german top100 site). There was no significant difference between the former two but, as expected, a much better conversion with the specific call.
However, none of this is relevant to the "Login" vs "Sign in" debate. If that button influences anything then it would be in the retention, and I doubt the impact can be measured in insulation either way. It's merely one of the tiny details that make a difference in aggregate.
Users want to provide their identity credentials to access your site and verify who they are. They do that via an electronic signature which is their username and password.
Therefore they want to "Sign In" with their signature.
The fact that you're 'logging' their signature is secondary to their needs. And as far as making a compound word out of "log" and "in"... well that's stupid (and wow... "Logout" is a new verb created just so you can leave a website securely? Try explaining what that is to someone who has never used the internet... 'no it's not street slang for going to the toilet').
As for your 'more effort to visually distinguish' between "Sign In" and "Sign up", you already solved that problem. "Sign in" and "Register" are the winners.
And we don't have to involve any lumps of wood (or new verbs that suggest bowel movements).
Once you've registered your signature with the site, the next time you arrive, you merely provide your signature. Register and then Sign In.