Comment by SkyMarshal

A little feedback: When I click "Notify me" on the front page, it takes me a sign-in form. I enter my email and a random password (since I don't have account yet), and then it tells me I don't have an account yet. I click "Sign Up" at the top and am taken to an account creation page. I then remember that all I wanted to do was sign up for the announcements email list, not create an account yet. why am I jumping through all these hoops? I quit and move on to the next HN article.

"Notify me" implies to the user they just need to give their email address and you'll email them with updates and announcements. They may not be ready to create an account yet, verify their email, all that rigamarole, so don't force them through that workflow just yet. When someone wants to give you their email address, for free, and get email updates from you, make it as simple and frictionless as possible for them to do that.