All posts tagged ‘OpenID’

File Under: Web Basics
Nov
20
2008

Yahoo Improves Its OpenID Support

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Yahoo continues to make strides to improve its OpenID implementation. Thursday it announced limited testing for Simple Registration, which supplies profile data once a user logs in with their Yahoo OpenID. Currently it is only testing Plaxo and Jyte.

OpenID sign in screen at Jyte

The experience logging in with Jyte is remarkable. It only takes a few clicks and I’m started using the site. It receives my preferred nickname from Yahoo, so I’m not even asked to fill in anything else.

Plaxo, on the other hand, requires a process that feels like signing up. Requiring info after signing in with OpenID makes moot one of the best things about OpenID for website owners. You can lower the barrier to entry for users by letting them use the site as soon as they arrive from their provider.

To that end, Simple Registration should be able to help solve the double signup issue, assuming sites treat the process like Jyte and not like Plaxo. Other OpenID providers have been sharing user’s profile information, with permission, for some time.

This part of OpenID is important, and it’s good to see one of the big boys on board. Still, it’ll be hard to say OpenID has really made it until I can sign on to Yahoo with any OpenID.

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File Under: Uncategorized
Oct
29
2008

OpenID Advocate Identifies Four Areas to Focus

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OpenID UX SummitLast week over 40 open thinkers met at Yahoo for the OpenID/OAuth User Experience Summit. Representatives from major web companies and innovative players spent a day discussing how to improve what they all hope will be a single sign-on owned by everybody.

Chris Messina, an OpenID advocate, attended the summit and came away with four areas he thinks OpenID needs to focus:

  • “Make it easier!”
  • Branding and marketing, so OpenID is recognized
  • Consistency of user experience
  • Leadership from OpenID Foundation

The over-arching goal, it seems, is to get OpenID ready for the masses. We’ve seen positive signs from the Yahoo usability study, but also learned that there’s a lot of user education needed to make it fit their mental model. Messina’s checklist is a good place to start.

[Photo by Chris Messina]

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File Under: Software & Tools
Oct
22
2008

MySpace HTML Evidence Suggests OpenID Coming Soon

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Wanna know how we know MySpace is going to support OpenID soon? Dig into the HTML of your account page and you’ll find a URL that references “https://api.myspace.com/openid”.

One of OpenID’s own evangelists, Chris Messina, was the first to display this detective work. The link is hidden in MySpace profiles and it currently leads to an error page for now. The mere fact it is there and wasn’t the last time code-snoopers checked means some OpenID action is percolating to the MySpace surface. Messina says we should expect it soon.

“I don’t have any insider information, but I’d expect to see this lit up by the end of the month. Right now you can’t use your MySpace OpenID for anything (I tried) but it’s promising to see this development,” Messina wrote on FriendFeed. “All I want to know is when the eff is Facebook gonna flip the switch? Ah, but I’ve stopped holding my breath, just like Digg’s pledged support for OpenID. I mean, if MySpace can pull this off, what’s the hold up?!”

OpenID supporters believe getting MySpace to support OpenID will be a very influential motivation for moving other sites onto the standard. In fact, it will be a game changer.

It’s unclear whether MySpace aims to be an OpenID provider, or supporter, or both. If the site becomes an OpenID host, it means your personal MySpace URL (ex: http://www.myspace.com/yournamehere) becomes your OpenID login, which would mean everyone who has a MySpace account — roughly 120 million users — will instantly have an OpenID login overnight. Enter it in on an OpenID-supporting site and you’re logged in quicker than saying “open sesame.”

However, many are still befuddled by OpenID. It presents a significant change to the way you log in to websites on the internet, and it may prove too jarring to be adopted en masse. In fact, two recent studies (one from Google and one from Yahoo) have shown there’s a huge user experience hurdle to overcome before OpenID catches on.

Were MySpace to push out broad support for OpenID, which this evidence shows it almost certainly will, the sheer size of its audience will be a huge factor towards speeding adoption.

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File Under: Web Basics
Oct
20
2008

Open Thinkers Meet at OpenID/OAuth User Experience Summit

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OpenIDSigns continue to point in a positive direction for OpenID. Representatives from major web companies and innovative players are meeting at Yahoo today to discuss the user experience of OpenID and OAuth.

The group is discussing about a dozen use cases. The descriptions are common user experiences, such as authenticating for a newspaper site, which wants the lightest weight mechanism possible. The examples run the gamut, as solutions will often need to work in all situations.

Among the big guns in attendance: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon, AOL, and Facebook. There are also startups with an interest in improving identity on the web: Vidoop, JanRain, Sxip, Netmesh and Chi.mp.

The meeting is well-timed, in light of Yahoo’s recent OpenID usability study.

[via Don Park]

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File Under: Web Basics
Oct
15
2008

Yahoo Users Befuddled by OpenID

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Yahoo OpenID FAILYahoo just released results of an OpenID usability study. Though there’s a silver lining, the news is mostly not good. Although we’re big fans of OpenID, it’s definitely not yet ready for mainstream adoption.

The study observed nine female Yahoo users in their thirties who considered themselves of medium-to-high internet savvy. The participants were told they could log in with their Yahoo ID at a third-party site. In many cases, the users tried to log in using the site’s main login, rather than the OpenID login. Users don’t understand multiple ways to log in, at least not without some education.

Unfortunately, the problems continue even when the user knows about OpenID. The module which lists popular providers, including Yahoo, confused users. There is no spot for a password, which seems strange to even advanced users (though this is becoming more popular with financial sites for security). Then comes Yahoo’s OpenID process, which is confusing for users that haven’t already added OpenID to their Yahoo account.

They’re pretty sobering results. The Developer Network also summarized the study and offers suggestions to third-party sites.

So, where’s that silver lining? The users saw the utility of OpenID:

  • “It’s convenient. You don’t have to give your whole life history to a site.”
  • “It’s easier because you don’t have to create a new ID and password.”
  • It eliminates the need for e-mail verification.

Even better, the study’s very existence shows that Yahoo is thinking about it. For OpenID to succeed on a grand scale, it’s going to take big players on the web making it understandable to the masses.

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