[jfax]

I'm reminded of this post I read regarding links that read "I forgot my password". I thought maybe wording it as "click here if..." would improve that but I somehow intuitively knew that's not right either.

> Ignoring the garbage on Web pages is a skill that some people don't have, and I don't know how to teach it. I'm reminded of this each time I try to help someone who doesn't have my background, use the Web; there are users who look at the literally first thing on the page and think about it carefully, even if it's "Please enable notifications," before they see the second item on the page at all.

> With Google searches now offering multiple screenfulls of garbage before the actual results, well.

> A related issue is failing to understand the epistemic status of different kinds of text on a page. E.g. the user who sees a clickable link with the text "I forgot my password" and believes that that means it's telling him he did forget his password (and it somehow knows this?), rather than just being the place to click if he forgot his password.

> The death of UI standardization, of course, makes this issue much worse.

https://mstdn.io/@mattskala/113188291223682980

[wvenable]

If "I forgot my password" is visibly a button then it's more effective than a link in that context.

I remember when Microsoft removed many buttons from their UI and replaced them with vaguely colored text (links) and it became a lot harder to figure out what to click on.

[mitchdoogle]

I would go for a verb that matches what the user actually is doing, i.e. "Reset Password". Also, I think a panel with a red or yellow background coming up after a couple of unsuccessful attempts to login with a complete sentence, "If you have forgotten your password, please visit this link to reset your password"

[xenadu02]

We should remember that UI conventions are mostly an arbitrary invention or are derivations of prior arbitrary inventions.

Users intuitively adapt themselves to the machine and developers adapt themselves to the users forming a feedback loop.

To put it another way: the meaning of language has probably been changed by so many websites and apps having an "I forgot my password" link. At least in that context most humans will adapt to understand the intent. Newer generations that have known nothing else won't even consider it to be worth their notice. In that sense there is also value in sticking to convention even if the convention makes no sense when considered in isolation.