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TL;DR / PROBLEM SUMMARY

  1. Business users should only sign up and login with the email/password option using their work email address. They cannot login with social login options.
  2. Personal users can sign up and login with either social login options or email/password.

PROBLEM DESCRIPTION

I am designing a new website which serves two different sets of users.

For the sign-up process, after clicking the Sign-Up button on the home page the user is shown a new form which prompts them to choose whether they are signing up for a personal account or a business/organisation account. After choosing this, they are then directed to the appropriate sign up page. For personal accounts, social login options are presented as well the email/password sign up option. This is fine even though the process is long winded.

The issue is after a user a signed up. When a user subsequently wants to log in I don't know if they have created a personal account or a business account. I don't want to show social log in options if they are a business user.

I have seen this post but it concentrates more on the sign-up process. Have I approached my sign-up process incorrectly which is making the log-in process difficult to get right? What is the best way to handle the UX for two different sets of users who should only have a subset of the possible login/sign-up options: for business users (only email/password) and for personal accounts (social + email/password)?

UPDATE

My solution to this is to have a 3 step process both for log-in and sign-up as follows:

  1. Sign-Up: Click Sign-Up button on home page -> Ask whether user is signing up for a personal account or on behalf of a business -> Direct user to the appropriate sign up form ie. personal or business
  2. Log-in: Click Log-in button on home page -> Ask whether user is logging into a personal account or business account -> Direct user to the appropriate log in form ie personal or business

This way the user sees a consistent process for either login or sign in but it is rather long winded. However, since the process is broken into separate forms there is no chance of confusion. Having both the personal and business login options on one form is overwhelming and confusing. Additionally I could add a small note at the bottom on the form recommending the user to bookmark the login in page so that they can bypass the initial part of this journey and go straight to the login form appropriate to their account type.

Wireframe

Another solution would to do what this website did. It offers two buttons (Personal and Business) under a login container.

enter image description here

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  • Maybe adding some mockups to your design solution will help with analysing or critiquing the design solution?
    – Michael Lai ♦
    Aug 12, 2018 at 21:50
  • Why can't business accounts use social login?
    – locationunknown
    Aug 13, 2018 at 5:06
  • @MichaelLai wireframe added.
    – user117628
    Aug 13, 2018 at 9:04
  • @locationunknown The person representing the business has to create the account for the business. They must not use their personal social login for this but rather their work email address.
    – user117628
    Aug 13, 2018 at 9:05
  • Why not just show one login page? The user will know what field to fill in or what button to press.
    – PixelSnader
    Aug 13, 2018 at 10:08

3 Answers 3

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Why not use a single, multipurpose log in form?

As soon as users have created an account, you don't want them to have to find the correct log in form.

Even with separate systems and a single log in form solution, your system can make sure that every user is being redirected to the correct landing page and corresponding information as soon as they signed in with their credentials.

The option of choosing a business or personal account would be something to decide beforehand, during the sign up procedure.

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  • I did consider this but I face two problems with this solution: (1) If I show the email/password option for logging in I have to add some content to explicitly tell the user that if he/she is logging on behalf of a business they must use their work email address but if they are logging in for their own personal use then they just use the email address they used to sign-up with. (2) If I show the social login options, then again I have to add content to tell business users that they should not use the social login options but rather use the email/password option.
    – user117628
    Aug 13, 2018 at 9:11
  • It's confusing to explain this let alone design it in such a way as to not confuse the user.
    – user117628
    Aug 13, 2018 at 9:11
  • As you can see from the wireframe I added to the post, the option to choose an account is explicitly asked for before actual account creation during sign up. Your point about the system working out which landing page they hit after logging in is not an issue for me. The system can and will work that out. But the post is about the step before that: i.e. the user using the correct log in mechanism appropriate to their account type. That is the tricky bit to get right. That is, directing the user to the correct log in options.
    – user117628
    Aug 13, 2018 at 9:19
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You could combine using twin "access points" with a fallback to the idea shown in the Lloyds Bank example. Let me explain.

On sign-up, you make users choose between Personal and Business registration. The former offers social-media options; the latter only offers email registration. Following successful sign-up, both on the website and in any confirmation emails, encourage the user to bookmark https://example.com/personal or https://example.com/business as their primary access point.

On return, what you shows depends on how they accessed your site:

  • https://example.com/personal
    Show a login screen with social-media options as well as email-address login.

  • https://example.com/business
    Show a login screen with just email-address login.

  • https://example.com
    If a user arrives at the "base" site, then show a dialog similar to the one in the Lloyds Bank example. Clicking either Personal or Business could either redirect to the appropriate page above (possibly prompting them to "bookmark this page"), or could present the appropriate login dialog on the same page (to avoid browser reload). In the latter case, you could still prompt them to use the specific landing page in future.

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The issue is after a user a signed up. When a user subsequently wants to log in I don't know if they have created a personal account or a business account.

To make it even more expandable you can have an authorize tag connected to each user. Login and then get the authorization level for this user.

This also means that you can have more levels of authorizations in the future.

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