UX best practice questions at RP Login with unknown OpenID

Sebastian Küpers pixelsebi at me.com
Tue Dec 2 16:23:01 UTC 2008


Hi there,

I work right now on the implementation of OpenID as a RP and I came up
with the following UX / best practice question:

we offer at the startpage a "login" and an additional "sign-up new
account" option.
for both options we offer openid als alternative. (login with your
openid) (sign up new account with your openid)

atm it seems to be quite common, that if somebody logins (NOT signs
up) with an unknown openid, the registration process starts
automatically, instead of pointing out with a small hint, that this is
an unknown openid and that he has now the option to sign up a new
account for this service with the openid he just entered.

I wonder now, what is the best practice?

Option 1: Automatic signup with an unkown OpenID at login
---------------------------------
PRO: it is quite likely, that he wants to signup a new account if we
don't know his openid yet, therefore let's do it without any
disrupting messages
CON: people who have several OpenIDs in use, maybe just have picked
the wrong one and realize pretty late, that they are about to sign up
a new account instead of just logging in. (happens to me quite often
to be honest)

Option 2: Give people a hint, that this openid is unkown and ask them
first if they want to sign up a new account instead
---------------------------------
PRO: it's more transparent what happens and people don't accidently
sign up a new account, although they just wanted to login in their
existing account
CON: might be an security issue, because this allows people to
evaluate if openids are already registered for this service

To be honest I tend to the solution that it would be better to give
people the hint, instead of automatically start the signup, if the
openid is unkown - what do you think?

Thanks,
Sebastian

-- 
Sebastian Küpers
Freelance Consultant

Virtual Worlds
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http://pixelsebi.com

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