Open letter to Webflow - Follow up part 2/3

Sign-up and Login Form

Providing the Sign-up and Login functionalities as stand-alone pages is NOT enough. Instead:

• Build them as components like the “Add to Cart” or “Login/Logout” components, so users can add these functionalities from the elements panel wherever they need them.
• Redirects, error messages, email content, and styles must be settings at the instance level, not global.
• Shorten the membership buying process by making the user password a mandatory form field at the checkout.

Gated Content

• Make CMS Items accessible based on user permission levels.

User Account Blocks in Logic

• Add an “Add User” block that functions the same as the sign-up form.
• Add a trigger when user confirmed his email
• Ensure that all error messages can be shown to users.
• Redirects, error messages, email content, and styles must be settings at the instance level, not global.

Additional shortcomings of User Accounts

• Store billing and shipping addresses in the user account.
• Make billing and shipping addresses editable in the user profile.
• Make the logged-in user’s name accessible everywhere, including inline in text elements as a variable
• Always pre-populate all existing user data when the user is logged in.

Bugs

• The individual error messages from the sign-up/login form settings are not working; it always shows the generic message.
• It is possible to sign up with the same email address repeatedly without triggering an error.
• When formatting text as code in the rich text element, the copy-and-paste functionality stops working, causing Webflow to crash in designer, editor, and CMS modes.

Wrap up

This may not sound like much, but the first two bullets alone address the most urgent shortcomings of the Webflow User Accounts feature, enabling a variety of business models using gated content.

• The user logs in or signs up and stays on the same page.
• The user logs in or signs up and gets redirected to the gated content.
• The user logs in or signs up and gets redirected to their user account profile.
• The user buys gated content A and gets redirected to content A. The user buys gated content B and gets redirected to content B.
• And most important, all the above is possible and not either/or.

And if anyone thinks it is a common use case for a user to be redirected to the homepage after login or sign-up, you can do that as well. 🤓

What comes next?

The next part will take some time. So stay tuned for Part 3, where we’ll dive into how Webflow handles user feedback. Don’t miss out—subscribe now to get the latest updates straight to your inbox!

Update June 24th: This open letter got the attention of the CPO Rachel Wolan on LinkedIn. So feel free and join the conversation and spread the word. The more engagement we create in this conversation, the more leverage we gain. Link