4 ms·

Is there any reason, technical or otherwise, for separating username and password to two pages? Gmail does this and it's a bit frustrating not being able to use

Is there any reason, technical or otherwise, for separating username and password to two pages? Gmail does this and it's a bit frustrating not being able to use my password manager effortlessly.

ncallaway 4y ago
The use case I’ve generally seen that leads to this design is supporting SSO from different providers. So, you ask for email first, then you can look up the user and see if the use a password to login, or if they need to be redirected to some other system to manager authentication.
- mynameisvlad 4y ago
  That can be done on a single page. I've had quite a few SaaSes do a lookup as I tab out of the username/email field and then redirect me.
  - cratermoon 4y ago
    It can be, but it's pretty heavyweight for a client-side feature, if the username/email to auth provider mapping is complex.
    - mynameisvlad 4y ago
      That wouldn't need to be a client side feature; a call can easily be made, and likely is in most of these cases.
- cratermoon 4y ago
  This is correct. It's called "identifier first", and it's a feature I've seen organizations request pretty often when they have to support multiple providers and auth schemes. I worked at a company that supported authentication with any of the InCommon Consortium members, and the solution was to provide a drop-down[1] where the user could select their institution (mostly academic or academic-adjacent) and then be directed to the provider to authenticate. As you might imagine, this only worked when there were a handful of institutions and the users were somewhat sophisticated. As of now there are nearly 600 institutions. With that many selection in the dropdown and less sophisticated users, that UX was unsustainable. 1 for example: https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/download/attachments/168691757/Screen%20Shot%202020-04-27%20at%2011.45.35%20AM.png https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/download/attachments/1686917...

Is there any reason, technical or otherwise, for separating username and password to two pages? Gmail does this and it's a bit frustrating not being able to use my password manager effortlessly.

ncallaway 4y ago

The use case I’ve generally seen that leads to this design is supporting SSO from different providers. So, you ask for email first, then you can look up the user and see if the use a password to login, or if they need to be redirected to some other system to manager authentication.

mynameisvlad 4y ago
That can be done on a single page. I've had quite a few SaaSes do a lookup as I tab out of the username/email field and then redirect me.
- cratermoon 4y ago
  It can be, but it's pretty heavyweight for a client-side feature, if the username/email to auth provider mapping is complex.
  - mynameisvlad 4y ago
    That wouldn't need to be a client side feature; a call can easily be made, and likely is in most of these cases.
cratermoon 4y ago
This is correct. It's called "identifier first", and it's a feature I've seen organizations request pretty often when they have to support multiple providers and auth schemes. I worked at a company that supported authentication with any of the InCommon Consortium members, and the solution was to provide a drop-down[1] where the user could select their institution (mostly academic or academic-adjacent) and then be directed to the provider to authenticate. As you might imagine, this only worked when there were a handful of institutions and the users were somewhat sophisticated. As of now there are nearly 600 institutions. With that many selection in the dropdown and less sophisticated users, that UX was unsustainable. 1 for example: https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/download/attachments/168691757/Screen%20Shot%202020-04-27%20at%2011.45.35%20AM.png https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/download/attachments/1686917...