4 ms·

I see Ted's point by trying to read your post about OpenID, even I don't get it.

derefr 18y ago
Well, I was coming at it from a developer's point of view. Here's a user story: 1. I don't have an account with this site. They say that if I have an account with (any of these other OpenID-supporting sites), though, that that one would work instead. Neato, but I don't use any of those, so: 2. I'll click on the register link here. Ah, here's a registration page. It doesn't have the site's logo on it, but they said that would happen--they've outsourced this part. 3. Registered. They gave me a link, and said "just treat it as your username." OK; I'll try to remember it, then. "It'll also work on all those other sites we mentioned, and more every day." Neato again; I might check some of those out. 4. I'm back on the site I started at, and I've already been logged in. They got my nickname right and everything. (days pass) 5. "You've been logged out of the site due to inactivity." Oh, well, what was my username again? That link thing? Oh, here it is in the autocomplete. 6. Hey, it didn't ask me for my password! What the heck? I'm just logged in all of the sudden. I guess that's good, then. (weeks pass) 7. "You've been", "inactivity", blah blah blah. Autocomplete. 8. Oh, I'm back on that site that did the registration. They're asking me for my password. Makes sense--they're the only ones that I told that particular detail. Put that in... 9. Ah, I'm back on track and logged in again. Nice.
- axod 18y ago
  Sorry but that's just way way way too confusing for most internet users. They know how standard registration/login works. They have a browser that remembers passwords for them. They don't need OpenID.
  - jrockway 18y ago
    How do you know this is too confusing? Did you ask anyone? Did you do any research? Why is this confusing but e-mail isn't? If I want to send and receive e-mail, I have to find my own provider. I also have to remember this weird string, "me@example.com". THAT'S TOO HARD FOR THE AVERAGE USER!!11!
    - axod 18y ago
      I agree... For quite a lot of people email IS too hard for them. Sometimes takes them quite a while to understand how it works. I'd say openID is orders of magnitude more complex and more worrying. I tried using openID once. It directed me to google or yahoo or something to log in... So then I had to decide if it was really google or yahoo, or if it was some phishing site. It's a terrible idea, which is sure to fail. There is no compelling reason for people to use it.
      - jrockway 18y ago
        How do you know you're really at news.yc when you log in?
  - derefr 18y ago
    I can bet you that I could fix all the problems you have with this story with one teensy little change: allow the OpenID providers to recieve "theme" information (basically a base URL for CSS files and images) from the sender site. Then the registration page would look like it was part of your site. Then, when rendering the login page/div, check whether the user is already logged into the provider using some onunfocus AJAX, and then smoothly drop the password field down underneath it if it's needed. (of course, then, you have to handle sending that password to that provider in a secure way, but we're focusing on user-persoective advantages now, so, like with IE6 support, a lot of sweat is to be expected.) from the user's perspective, if they don't know what the little "OpenID-enabled" icon next to the username box means, they can just go along with their business, and everything will happen as usual. The only problem at this point is the URL username. To answer that, think about what, for example, gmail does: when you have a gmail.com address, you can drop that part and just use the username part of it. Likewise, I'd allow my users to strip off the domain part of whatever my "preferred provider" was, and just say that the "foreign IDs" basically need a "passport stamp" to get in--an attached domain name. Still too confusing?
- furiouslol 18y ago
  Sorry. Too confusing for the average internet user.
  - tjpick 18y ago
    yes, most things are.

Well, I was coming at it from a developer's point of view. Here's a user story: 1. I don't have an account with this site. They say that if I have an account with (any of these other OpenID-supporting sites), though, that that one would work instead. Neato, but I don't use any of those, so: 2. I'll click on the register link here. Ah, here's a registration page. It doesn't have the site's logo on it, but they said that would happen--they've outsourced this part. 3. Registered. They gave me a link, and said "just treat it as your username." OK; I'll try to remember it, then. "It'll also work on all those other sites we mentioned, and more every day." Neato again; I might check some of those out. 4. I'm back on the site I started at, and I've already been logged in. They got my nickname right and everything. (days pass) 5. "You've been logged out of the site due to inactivity." Oh, well, what was my username again? That link thing? Oh, here it is in the autocomplete. 6. Hey, it didn't ask me for my password! What the heck? I'm just logged in all of the sudden. I guess that's good, then. (weeks pass) 7. "You've been", "inactivity", blah blah blah. Autocomplete. 8. Oh, I'm back on that site that did the registration. They're asking me for my password. Makes sense--they're the only ones that I told that particular detail. Put that in... 9. Ah, I'm back on track and logged in again. Nice.

axod 18y ago
Sorry but that's just way way way too confusing for most internet users. They know how standard registration/login works. They have a browser that remembers passwords for them. They don't need OpenID.
- jrockway 18y ago
  How do you know this is too confusing? Did you ask anyone? Did you do any research? Why is this confusing but e-mail isn't? If I want to send and receive e-mail, I have to find my own provider. I also have to remember this weird string, "me@example.com". THAT'S TOO HARD FOR THE AVERAGE USER!!11!
  - axod 18y ago
    I agree... For quite a lot of people email IS too hard for them. Sometimes takes them quite a while to understand how it works. I'd say openID is orders of magnitude more complex and more worrying. I tried using openID once. It directed me to google or yahoo or something to log in... So then I had to decide if it was really google or yahoo, or if it was some phishing site. It's a terrible idea, which is sure to fail. There is no compelling reason for people to use it.
    - jrockway 18y ago
      How do you know you're really at news.yc when you log in?
- derefr 18y ago
  I can bet you that I could fix all the problems you have with this story with one teensy little change: allow the OpenID providers to recieve "theme" information (basically a base URL for CSS files and images) from the sender site. Then the registration page would look like it was part of your site. Then, when rendering the login page/div, check whether the user is already logged into the provider using some onunfocus AJAX, and then smoothly drop the password field down underneath it if it's needed. (of course, then, you have to handle sending that password to that provider in a secure way, but we're focusing on user-persoective advantages now, so, like with IE6 support, a lot of sweat is to be expected.) from the user's perspective, if they don't know what the little "OpenID-enabled" icon next to the username box means, they can just go along with their business, and everything will happen as usual. The only problem at this point is the URL username. To answer that, think about what, for example, gmail does: when you have a gmail.com address, you can drop that part and just use the username part of it. Likewise, I'd allow my users to strip off the domain part of whatever my "preferred provider" was, and just say that the "foreign IDs" basically need a "passport stamp" to get in--an attached domain name. Still too confusing?
furiouslol 18y ago
Sorry. Too confusing for the average internet user.
- tjpick 18y ago
  yes, most things are.