Friday, September 08, 2006

This webpage is not the login server you're looking for

A service I manage, talked about here in an abstract form to protect its identity and my users' stupidity, has two components - the server itself, which has its own clients, authentication system, yadda, yadda and the website that serves the end-user documentation. The website for the service (with the documentation) redirects into a larger CMS/wiki site, with its own authentication system.

Apparently, users are going to the website, clicking login, and are confused when it doesn't provide access to the service. They're not reading a word of the documentation -- they're just seeing a login button in the top right corner and clicking on it.

That prompted us to put a banner at the top of the page:

Attention New Users!

This site is the documentation for the service. It is not the actual service. The login link in the upper right corner won't log you into the service.

To use the service, follow the instructions linked from this page.


We considered s/New Users!/Dumbass/, but figured that wasn't very polite.