Another approach to OpenID authentication from Mediamatic

Chris Messina chris.messina at gmail.com
Wed Apr 29 17:18:27 UTC 2009


On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 1:16 AM, David Christiansen <
openid-userexperience at davidchristiansen.com> wrote:

> I also fell into the 'typical user' trap and clicked through the 'Log In'
> dropdown, hit back to the reboot site THEN saw the alternatives. I think
> user's (and this includes me I guess ;)) subconsciously don't read a whole
> page before deciding what to do - they find the first thing that looks like
> it will meet their needs and click! Frankly on first pass I didn't even read
> the other red headings - this is not a dig at the site design, but more an
> observation on user behaviour.
>

This is absolutely true. People don't read on the web, they scan, and even
at that, they look for handles to grab on to and just click. I blame Google.

Regardless, this is partially why the OpenID Nascar solution is somewhat
effective — people will click the familiar even if they don't know what it
will do, and I think that's a fundamental problem.

This is why I'm eager to user-test a "type anything" or "type-ahead box":

Who are you?
.____________________________. .____.
|____________________________| |_Go_|

(type a service, username or email address that you want to identify
yourself as)

Or something along those lines (that's a sketch, not a blueprint).

We could even toss in the OpenID logo to the left, just to provide a hint
for those "in the know". I know this idea probably has more ideas than
solutions on its face, but I think we need a plurality of solutions to try,
measure and analyze rather than saying no.

So, before anyone poo-poos this idea, go get data, measure at least 100
people in an A/B test and tell me what the results show.

Chris



>
> What I would have done, with the proviso of the use of a cool Accordion, is
> display a text link prompt on each 'fold' saying "Did you know..." for
> example "Did you know you could also log in using OpenID?" and "Did you
> know you could Register?"
>
> This  would catch all those scanning users as they would pick up on the
> word OpenID, as it appeared in the same contextual panel as the other text.
>
> All good positive feedback I hope, Great work, nice use of JQuery.
>
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> http://openid.net/mailman/listinfo/user-experience
>
>


-- 
Chris Messina
Open Web Advocate

factoryjoe.com // diso-project.org // openid.net // vidoop.com
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