[OpenID] Live Icons for visual recognition of IDP logos

[Rabbit]

I really feel like there is already a proven model for adoption that  
can be applied here.

We have a globally implemented technology which we want to replace  
with a new technology although it might not be immediately understood  
in the way that it needs to be.

I would equate this to when we had globally implemented HTML which we  
wanted to replace with XHTML although it wasn't immediately understood  
by browsers in the way it needed to be.

Imagine instead of having one OpenID-UX standard, web developers were  
given two standards to choose from based on the needs of their target  
market; OpenID-UX-Transitional and OpenID-UX-Advanced. One would be  
highly informative and assume the user knows nothing about OpenID and  
may in fact have their head stuck in their computer chair for the  
third time while the other assumes the user is familiar with OpenID  
and has used it to login before.

Imho, the community is currently missing a huge opportunity to  
bootstrap the OpenID brand into recognition by being properly paired  
with popular OpenID-enabled brands. I'm a little stunned there has  
been research discovering users are more likely to click on a huge  
"Google Sign In" button instead of an almost transparent OpenID logo.  
I always felt like that should be obvious. People know what Google is.  
The problem I have with this, and where I feel there is a missed  
opportunity, is that the Google brand does not mean login. The Google  
brand means search or maps or even porcelain kittens before it means  
login the way OpenID means login. I really feel that OpenID should be  
directly paired with the Google logo each and every time a user signs  
in with OpenID + Google and same with every other service.

The reason is recognition. If OpenID becomes the recognizable symbol  
for "login" as Flickr means "photos" and Google means "search", you  
eventually won't need to leverage popular brands as desperately as you  
do now.

So, imho, there needs to be a OpenID-UX-Transitional standard that  
closely pairs the OpenID logo to recognized brands. OpenID should not  
stand on it's own as it's own option because that communicates to most  
users that it is just as different as MySpace is to Google is to  
Yahoo! is to X is to Z.

=Rabbit