UX feedback on iOS registration process

[egtann]

I've been trying to move my social circle to use Element rather than Signal, and it has been blocked by UX issues that became stumbling blocks for all parties involved. Aaron at Matrix recommended I post this here rather than in the #element-ios:matrix.org room.

My hope in submitting this feedback is that it can be used to make the registration process easier. It's especially important as a first impression to make the registration process easy.

I have my own EMS instance and I was trying to get people close to me to sign up to that, not on matrix.org.

Person 1: I had my mother (in her 70s) sign up, who is probably the least technical person alive, and thus a good indicator as to how easy or difficult something is to use. If she can figure it out, anyone can. First issue was that the input box for the "Homeserver URL" on the registration page wasn't visually distinguished as an input box. My mother kept trying to tap the "Homeserver URL" label rather than the "https://matrix.org" input box underneath that which is just text on a white background. Took several minutes of her telling me, "Nothing happens, i can't edit it," before I figured out the right question to ask.

The second issue is my fault. I gave her the wrong homeserver URL -- I gave my Element URL instead. Easy to confuse the two -- I am a software engineer by trade, and I still confused them. The real issue is that it allowed her to register, had her verify her email (a whole ordeal), and only after all of that did she see a popup saying something along the lines of "couldn't connect to homeserver." The sub-text on the popup to help me debug it for her over the phone was too small for her to read. It had a button for "OK" so she clicked it, only to be presented with a spinning logo and a repeat of the same error as before. There was seemingly no way for her to get past this step. We deleted the app and will try to re-install/re-register at a future time.

Person 2: Signed up to my homeserver, then immediately saw an "Invalid signature for server ... Signature was forged or corrupt" error. Neither he nor I had any idea why that happened or what to do about it. He hit "OK" and started receiving messages from me which he couldn't decrypt. He wasn't verified yet, and I had "Only send to verified sessions" set, so this made sense. I started the verification process with him, and he didn't receive the request. "Strange." I cancel and start it again. Still nothing. Then he tells me, "I'm getting a bunch of messages that can't be decrypted." I disabled the "Only send to verified sessions" setting, restarted the verification, and it worked! It was unexpected to me that I can't verify users with this setting enabled. Bumpy start, but we're now able to exchange messages.

Person 3: Saw how difficult it was for person 2, and didn't register.

These seem like small things--and they are--but it's worth noting that with Discord, Slack, and Signal, the sign-up process is slick. I can tell someone to download the app, and they can sign up at all different levels of technical ability without issue. I can use these across my company and trust that people will be able to figure them out without needing IT. With Element, even with me on the phone walking them through step-by-step, I'm still unable to handle and understand all the edge cases in the registration process.

[pixlwave]

Hi @egtann, thank you for your detailed feedback on these issues. Taking them one-by-one:

1. We have implemented a new authentication flow which should make this much more user friendly. It will be in the next release and we welcome your feedback when you have been able to give it a try.
2. This sounds like either a self signed / misconfigured SSL certificate, or something on their connection messing with the connection. If you still have an issue with verifying users when "only send to verified sessions" is enabled, would you mind creating a separate issue for that so we can look into fixing it separately.
3. 😞 - We really hope our latest changes to the onboarding process make a difference here.

[pixlwave]

I'm going to close this issue out seeing as #6469 makes major changes to the registration process, but please do create new issues if you encounter them 🙂