This dialog box is asking me a question. Who am I? It is probably a good feature but I don't know how to answer it. At least I don't know the consequences of answering it.

Here's the risk for me as a new user of this interface: I have just invested a chunk of my time composing a comment for someone's blog. I'm ready to post it. I don’t want to lose it.

The popup dialog presents some hints that I have choices about identity - but no cues or explanations about what to do precisely.

If you are familiar with this dialog (or one similar to it) you may think this is an insignificant matter. But try to imagine what it would be like the first time you see it, perhaps after having spent a good 15 or 20 minutes composing your thoughtful comment.

In a perfect world web sites would never throw away the data you’ve just entered into a form and there would be nothing to worry about here. But the fact is some sites do wipe forms clean when users make an ‘error’ so that risk will always be present, especially when encountering an unfamiliar interface.

To new users of this interface, it may not be obvious what the consequences are if one of the options on the left are clicked. Part of this is because there is no textual cue to explain what will happen. Part of it is because the graphic design is somewhat ambiguous.

Only after you click one of the items does it become clear what they mean and how they behave. They are tabs and they present options for ‘signing in’. Until now we saw no words to indicate that we were even supposed to 'sign in' when posting a comment.

I did some informal testing with a couple of people and found that they had the same general problem with this interface. One believed that clicking on Twitter or Facebook would send the comment to those sites (rather than the current site) and one said she would just give up trying to post. Neither had a clue that 'signing in' was required in just to post a comment.

User anxiety around this kind of dialog could easily be reduced by adding a couple of textual cues: one in the caption bar to inform users that they need to sign in; and one above the form options that says they need to choose an ID. Also, a minor layout adjustment helps make it more apparent that the links at the side are 'tabs'. Here’s a slightly modified version. What do you think?