ux: auth usability pass — 6 fixes from Nielsen heuristics + Don't Make Me Think#47
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A failed login (wrong password, server down) popped a native alert() dialog that covered the form, demanded a click to dismiss, and vanished without a trace — leaving the player to re-find the form with no record of what went wrong. Native alerts also look nothing like the game and read as "something broke" rather than "here's how to fix it" (Nielsen #9: help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors). This routes both the empty-field check and the server error message into an inline, styled error box above the form that stays visible while the player corrects their input, and clears automatically on the next submit. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
…bmits Pressing "Log In" gave no sign anything was happening: the button stayed idle-looking while the network request ran, so on a slow connection the player had no feedback and would click again, firing a second login (Nielsen #1: visibility of system status). A double-submit can also race two requests. The submit button now disables itself and switches to "Logging in…" for the duration of the request, restoring on failure. The player sees the click registered and cannot fire a duplicate while one is in flight (Nielsen #5: error prevention). Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
When a player landed on the login page they got no context: someone who just registered, or who was bounced here by an expired session, saw only an empty form and had to guess what happened and retype the username they'd just entered (Nielsen #9: recognize/recover from errors; Krug: don't make me think — answer the obvious question before it's asked). This adds a neutral "notice" box (visually distinct from the red error box) and reads a one-time handoff from sessionStorage on load: it shows a message like "Account created — please log in" or "Your session expired", pre-fills the username, and moves focus to the password field. Producers of those messages follow in the register and game commits. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The most common registration error — "username already taken" (409) — was delivered as a native alert() that obscured the form and disappeared on dismiss, so the player lost the message the moment they went to change their username (Nielsen #9: help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors). It also clashed visually with the game's styling. This mirrors the login screen: the empty-field check and the server error now render in an inline, styled error box above the form that persists while the player edits and clears on the next submit. (The success path is handled in the following commit.) Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
… login Two problems on success: the button gave no feedback while the account was being created (Nielsen #1: visibility of system status), and on success a native alert() said "Account created. Please log in." — then dropped the player on an empty login form where they had to retype the username they'd just chosen (Krug: don't make me think). The button now disables and reads "Creating account…" during the request, and on success the screen hands off to login via sessionStorage — showing an "Account created — please log in" notice with the username pre-filled and the cursor in the password field. No modal, no retyping. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
When a token expired or was revoked mid-game, every authenticated request's 401 handler silently called logout() and dumped the player on the login screen with no explanation — indistinguishable from a random kick (Nielsen #9: help users recognize and recover from errors). Voluntary logout was equally mute: the player clicked Logout and just landed on a blank form with no confirmation it had worked (Nielsen #1: visibility of system status). The 401 handlers now call sessionExpired(), which leaves a "Your session expired — please log in again" notice for the login screen to show, while voluntary logout leaves a "You have been logged out" confirmation. sessionExpired also skips the pointless server revoke call that logout() makes, since the token the server just rejected is already invalid. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Summary
Usability pass over the authentication UI added in #45 (login, register, and the auth bits of the game screen). Every commit is one self-contained Nielsen / Krug fix, scoped small for easy review. Theme: feedback & error recovery — no more blocking
alert()s, visible progress on submit, and the player is always told why they're looking at the login screen.Round 1 — auth feedback & error recovery
alert()that covers the form and vanishes on dismiss (Nielsen Implement tile-by-tile army movement with Manhattan pathfinding #9).alert()(Nielsen Implement tile-by-tile army movement with Manhattan pathfinding #9).alert()+ empty form (Nielsen Implement minimal client/server game prototype with Spring Boot backend and LWJGL frontend #1, Krug).Test plan
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