How We Improved Login at FBN and Converted Abandoned Carts Into Sales

Signing into your account can be frustrating when the system errors out. Streamlining login systems greatly reduced customer success interactions and login error rates.

Role: Senior Product Design Manager

AT A GLANCE:

reduction in sign-in errors

75%

of dollars in cart purchase completion recovered

Millions

hours recovered from the Customer Success team

100s

What if you had at least five way to access a site, but only one was the correct way? What if someone else set up your account? Frustrated yet?

The Challenge

The FBN legacy login experience was outdated, error-prone, and lacked clear messaging. This led to issues like up to 50% failed logins, and confusion on login modality among farmers and administrators. It also resulted in high drop-off rates during login attempts and the creation of duplicate accounts.

Additionally, the legacy login form provided little help for the user to recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors.

Customers were exasperated when they didn’t receive SMS codes and were locked out of their accounts.

Furthermore, during usability testing third party logins revealed a host of issues that made the experience more frustrating than seamless:

User Confusion: Some users mistakenly entered their Google email and password into the regular login fields, assuming the third-party logos were just decorative. Others failed to recognize that these options were login methods.
Users Forget Their Login Method: Many users don’t remember which third-party service they originally used, leading to duplicate accounts when the system automatically creates a new one instead of recognizing an existing profile.
Single Sign-On (SSO) Complications: Organizations requiring SSO added another layer of complexity, sometimes redirecting users away from app login pages entirely, making it harder to access their accounts.

Legacy FBN login flow offering a looping amount of authentication options.

The Fix

After conducting usability tests with 12 participants to assess the current login process, my team and I shifted to a federated login system, which meant users could select their preferred authentication method, such as email, phone, OAuth, or password. A two-screen experience meant that if the user signed up using a third-party service, FBN would display only that service in the next step. If they registered without one, then the second screen would prompt them to enter their password.

We removed unnecessary buttons and simplified the experience, as well as offered error states to troubleshoot which included actionable alternatives. We then performed testing to refine designs and validate effectiveness.

Gherkin Markdown: A structured way to write test cases in plain English

Feature: User Login Verification

Use Case 1: Server has both Email and Phone Given the system has the user's email and phone number When the user attempts to log in Then the system verifies the user using backend authentication And the user is granted access smoothly.

Use Case 2: Server has neither Email nor Phone Given the system does not have the user's email or phone number When the user attempts to log in Then the system cannot verify the user And the user is classified as a visitor And the user is prompted to sign up.

Use Case 3: Server has Email but no Phone Given the system has the user's email but not their phone number When the user attempts to log in with a phone number And the phone number is not recognized Then the user gets a second attempt to log in And the user can recover their password using their email.

Use Case 4: Server has Phone but no Email Given the system has the user's phone number but not their email When the user attempts to log in with an email And the email is not recognized Then the user gets a second attempt to log in And the user can recover their password using their phone number.

Revising designs with engineers (based on user feedback)

The Results

A more efficient and secure login experience led to more than just a 75% reduction in sign-in error rates. Magic link and SMS failure rate went down significantly, due to introducing the login with email or phone number option in the new flow which provides an alternative way to login as opposed to previously only email option.

We also gave back hundreds of hours to the Customer Success team and added millions of dollars in cart recovery transactions. Additionally, we reduced user confusion, as 92% of participants preferred the new, more streamlined sign-in experience.

For security reasons we deprioritized the use of password and a password reset in this new flow, but we did hear from farmers and CX anecdotally, so it is something we put into the roadmap for future consideration.

By integrating a federated login, users would input a single identifier, and would be redirected to the appropriate service.