The Member Portal That Made Me Log Out: A Case Study in Unintended Consequences

I’m a member of multiple professional bodies. Like most of us working in this sector, I join to stay sharp, stay connected, and stay ahead. Every so often, one of these organisations launches a “new and improved” portal, usually with great excitement and confident claims about putting members at the centre.

Last week, one of my memberships unveiled its shiny new platform. I followed the prompts, updated my password, and landed on a dashboard that looked clean enough. New colours. New icons. New button shapes. The usual signals of digital progress.

Then the reality set in.

Every time I clicked a feature (resources, courses, communities, anything!) the system asked for my password again. Some links opened in new tabs, others routed to external platforms, each with its own login prompt. After a dozen loops of typing, retyping, confirming, and swearing(!!), I closed the window.

I didn’t lose interest. The system lost me.

I’m not naming the organisation because this isn’t about calling anyone out. It’s about what this experience says about how easily well-intentioned digital upgrades can miss the point. And it’s about what other membership bodies can learn before their next big launch.

1. A Digital Front Door Isn’t Enough

A fresh dashboard can look great in a Board paper. It gives everyone a sense that the organisation is investing in its members and keeping up with modern expectations; but if the front door is sleek and the internal corridors are disjointed, the experience breaks. A portal should feel like one integrated space. One login. One journey. One environment that holds the member’s hand all the way through.

What I encountered was a hallway full of locked doors, each demanding my credentials like a bouncer suspicious of my intentions; and the lesson? 

A portal is not a website. It’s an ecosystem. If the single sign-on doesn’t work as a single sign-on, the member won’t stick around long enough to enjoy the content.

2. Members Don’t See Systems. We See Friction.

Behind the scenes, the issues were almost certainly technical:

• a collection of legacy platforms held together by goodwill;

• multiple third-party systems requiring independent authentication;

• incomplete identity integration; and

• security rules turned up to eleven.

But members don’t see any of that. They don’t care whether the LMS uses a different API or whether the events platform is hosted elsewhere. They don’t want a tour of the org chart or the tech stack. They just want to click and go. In other words, the member doesn’t experience the complexity. We experience the consequences. If the system asks for my password 12 times, I don’t think, “Ah, interesting, this must be an identity federation issue with Azure AD.” I think, “This is not worth it.” That’s the real risk. Not frustration but abandonment.

3. Digital Transformation Is Really Behavioural Transformation

The technical fix is straightforward enough: implement proper single sign-on, tidy up the integrations, and create consistent session rules. These are solvable problems. The harder part is cultural.

In many membership organisations, different teams own different systems. Training owns the LMS. Comms owns the CMS. Membership owns CRM access. Policy owns their knowledge hub. Each system evolves independently. Each is procured for a specific need. Each works well on its own terms. But none is designed around one continuous member journey.

Digital transformation only works when departments stop building standalone solutions and start building shared ones. That shift isn’t technical, it’s behavioural. It requires systems thinking, cross-team planning, joint procurement, and a shared vision of what good looks like.

If those behaviours aren’t in place, you get portals that are new in appearance but old in logic.

4. Members Measure Value in Moments

As professionals, we talk endlessly about value propositions, segmentation models, impact narratives, and service portfolios. All important work. Yet in practice, members often judge value in the smallest moments:

• Can I access what I expect without hassle?

• Can I move between services seamlessly?

• Does the organisation make my professional life easier, or harder?

This is the moment members make up their minds. A portal that requires multiple password prompts doesn’t just irritate. It sends a signal that the organisation is not thinking in member-centred terms. It suggests internal processes trump user experience. And it risks eroding goodwill at the very moment the organisation is trying to demonstrate its relevance. Put simply, convenience is part of the value proposition. Treat it as such.

5. The Launch Isn’t the Finish Line

The sector loves a big reveal. “We’ve launched the new portal!” Cue applause, animated GIFs, and a microsite with screenshots. But launch is only the start and real success depends on:

• thorough user testing with real members, not internal staff;

• clear pathways tested under real-world conditions;

• immediate fixes to issues that emerge in the first week; and

• honest communication about what’s being improved.

You can’t test a portal’s resilience in a vacuum. Members will find the cracks within minutes; and if the organisation isn’t ready to respond quickly, the frustration becomes the story. A launch shouldn’t be a celebration. It should be a commitment to continuous improvement.

6. Abandonment Is a Warning Signal

When I closed the window, I wasn’t being dramatic. I was behaving like any member would. 

If a portal feels like work, people won’t use it. 

They certainly won’t renew because of it. They may view it as evidence that the organisation doesn’t fully understand their needs. This isn’t doom-laden. It’s a prompt, because a system that drives members away is telling you something valuable. It’s a call to action: redesign the journey, close the gaps, and rebuild trust in the digital experience.

7. The Opportunity Is Bigger Than the Problem

Despite the clunky experience, I’m not pessimistic. Most organisations only need three things to get this right:

1. a clear map of the member journey;

2. a unified view of the digital ecosystem; and

3. a cross-functional team empowered to improve it.

If you build those foundations, the portal becomes more than a login screen. It becomes a strategic asset that reinforces professionalism, deepens engagement, and demonstrates value every time a member logs in.

My little saga with repeated password prompts isn’t unique. Many membership bodies face the same challenge: modern intentions held back by legacy structures. But the good news is simple. When organisations design with the member at the centre, the technology strengthens the relationship rather than straining it. And sometimes it takes one inconvenient experience, and one abandoned portal, to remind us of that.