Are multiple login locations a bad idea?

I initially designed my site to show a login box at the top of the page if the user was not authenticated (e.g. how reddit.com works).

I encountered a user who was having trouble with their browser's storage of their password because after a password change because their browser had stored their login information at different urls on the website. Even after the user typed correctly the new login information at one url, and the browser updated it, there would be other urls at which the browser had the incorrect login information.

This would also cause problems with sites that have a login box on their main page, and a special login page -- especially if the user front pa开发者_开发知识库ge login box is sent to the login page.

Is this a small enough case not to bother with, or should there only be one url at which a user can login to prevent this problem, especially for less technically-savvy audiences?

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There should be one login page that every other page accessible sans login links to. It standardizes the process of logging in and reduces the kind of confusion your user experienced. It conforms to a convention that all the browsers are using with respect to saving passwords as well. Don't really see how you can go wrong that way.

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Most sites use a single "sign in" button that takes you to the canonical login page.

If you want a signin box on every page that the browser can remember, consider using an iframe to hold the form.

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I believe that if there is any way to use only ONE login location you should try to do it that way.

As you yourself said it's quite hard for browsers to determine what to do with stored passwords for sites with multiple login locations. There are possibly other problems and all of them are solved by having exactly one login location.

If you need to provide login from more places, just use redirection. But getting "in" your system should be done from one single place.

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Just have one login page and have the other pages on your site linking to it. It keeps it simple for end users as there is only one page and easy for you to manage as you one have one login page.