A lot of us are in tech and we come across these problems and just troubleshoot our way around them and don’t really think about them, so I figured a “case study” might be helpful. Image unrelated.

Anyway, yesterday I tried making an alt account on lemmy.world. When last we left the situation, I had been notified that my registration application had been denied, but I’d been asked to confirm my email and https://lemmy.world/u/sergio had been created. A couple helpful commenters suggested my account might still be under review.

  • Today I tried logging in again. But when I entered my username and password, I got a popup that said “incorrect login credentials”. Maybe I needed to verify my email again? I went to my email, clicked the “verify your email” link, and just got a page with text that said “verify email” and nothing else. Maybe it didn’t like me using my username to log in? So I tried logging in with my EMAIL and my password, and still got that “incorrect login credentials”.
  • Maybe something’s wrong with my password? I’m using a password manager but OK, let’s just try changing my password. I clicked on the “forgot email” link on the login page. I entered my email address and clicked “reset password”… and nothing happens. No feedback, and I don’t get an email. (10 minutes so far).
  • maybe I should check https://lemmy.world/u/sergio ? Hey, that’s no longer there, I just get an error! I check the user page of another lemmy.world user and it works, so it’s not a server problem. Maybe my application really was denied? Was it really reviewed? What do I do now?

(my intuition is to try again with a different username, email address, computer, and browser from a different location at a different time of day…)

  • Sergio@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
    71·
    2 days ago

    I don’t know why people suggested to try again.

    When software devs do user experience studies, they ask the end users to “think aloud” (while doing something) or “tell us why you did that” (after the fact). So I agree with your comment, but in the spirit of a user experience study…

    • although a message said “registration application denied”, when I re-tried logging in I also got a message saying something like “too many users try again later”. So I thought it might just be a server glitch or overload or something
    • the “confirm your email” message, and the fact that https://lemmy.world/u/sergio had been created, suggested that my account had in fact been created
    • I am not actually a bot or a spammer so I didn’t see any reason why I should be rejected. I didn’t want to give up just because I saw one “denied” message as part of the confusing experience. There wasn’t much downside to just trying again a day later. (except I felt a bit of apprehension and it was kind of a downer when it didn’t work again)
    • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      31·
      2 days ago

      I get where you’re coming from, but this sort of qa should be done in coordination with the service provider to work well.