July 18, 2006
Usernames are bad for the net

Last night I tried to order a pizza from Pizza Hut via their web page. If any industry was perfect for the web, it's food delivery. Pizza Hut made me create an account and a username before I could order a pizza. If I want to order another pizza there, I have to remember my fucking Pizza Hut username again.

This is just getting ridiculous.

Do the people at Pizza Hut really expect me to remember a specific username to order pizza with?

In fact, the use of usernames to log into web sites is completely and utterly wrong.

Every time you create an account somewhere, they need your email address, mainly for the purpose of having a way to contact you. Many times they also insist on creating a username that you use to log in with as well. There is no reason at all for the creation of a username.

Let’s think about this for a minute:

Cons about usernames for people

    The username you want is already taken
    You need to remember a gazillion different usernames
    If you forget your username, you need to wait for an email to be sent to you
    It leads to using the same username/password everywhere

Pros about user names for people

    None

All a login username does is create yet another roadblock between you and the information or task you want on the net. Why can’t all sites use your email address as the login name? It can’t be fore security reasons, web sites trust the email address implicitly and will send your username or password to you via email without hesitation. It can’t be for identity reasons, logging in with a email address still allows for displaying a username.

Cons about using email address to log in

    None

Pros about using email address to log in

    You only need to remember your password
    Someone can't take your email address

Web designers are you listening? Stop with the usernames already. They are a huge pain in the ass to everyone and serve no benefit. Just stick with email addresses and be done with it.

On a side note, the wings from Pizza Hut sucked as well. I should have gone with Papa Johns. Not only is their food better, they let you log in with your email address.

Posted by michael at July 18, 2006 05:59 PM