Is there a way to display text instead of the sign-in icon? Users are confused.

Sean Jones
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February 3, 2025

Hello folks,

When users access our confluence cloud instance, we reliably get a few questions a month about why certain content is not available, and the answer invariably ends up being that they are not signed in. To quote a user:

I didn't realize that was a login symbol.

I'm with the user on this one. Tiny rectangle with an arrow pointing in is not the most obvious tell that a user isn't logged in, especially since our users are able to access some content without needing to sign in. I've also had users mistake this as a "sign-out" button, with the rectangle and arrow representing "leaving a room" or "shutting a door" or similar.

Is there a way to adjust this icon for our instance so that instead of being tiny and inconspicuous, it says "Log in" or "Sign in" or something like that, similar to how it's presented on atlassian.com? 

Inconspicous Login Icon.png

If not, could Atlassian please consider making this change on their end to bring atlassian.net more in line with atlassian.com? This seems like too important an action to not have actual text for.

Thank you!

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Kristian Klima
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February 3, 2025

Hi @Sean Jones and welcome to the Community.

Disclaimer: I speak as a user and I'm not an Atlassian employee. But I'm in the business of product documentation and writing :) 

When the user is singed it, they have their photo or an antropomorphic avatar displayed in place of the sign in button.

The logic in this use-case is

  1. I cannot see a page.
  2. Is there anything I can do to see the content?
  3. I can look for the sign in button. 
  4. Is there one?

It does work. Your users follow that logic. They just chosed to treat is sign out button. Which is not logical but it's easier because it is a vehicle that gets them from "I have to do something" to "Let somebody else do do something."

It's not about your users in particular, it's about users in general. Users will rather open a ticket on 'how do I do something' and wait a day for Support to respond ... instead of clicking the link in the GUI to open a documentation page that tells them exactly what Support would send.

 

We could argue whether the -> Door is Enter and Door -> is exit.

We can make a case for 'replace the current icon with a large modal that says sign in.

The left side of the UI has tabs, the right sight has icons. So it's a design choice. There's a search field that doesn't say search, there's cogwheel that doesn't say setting, and there's a login icon that doesn't say login.

But I guess it's very likely that it will have negligible effect on the number of cases. Whatever you implement, there will always be a cohort of users who will not get the message and opt out.

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