User Experience Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for user experience researchers and experts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
According to adrianh in his comment to an answer:
Every single time I have /tested/ openid with "normal" users as opposed to technical folk it's caused more problems than it's solved. Every. Single. Time. Has anybody's experiences been different?
What makes it so difficult to use? How could those issues be solved?
OpenID has several drawbacks:
You're actually going to a totally different website in order to register or authenticate. This is not how things work ordinary. For years, registration and authentication for a website was done on the same website: the user was moved to a different website either because he wanted to, or because he was redirected to an advertisement.
Switching to a place completely unrelated to the original website in order to register or authenticate creates frustration. The same frustration exists when you're redirected to a different place when paying online. The difference is that frustration during payment is balanced by the technical choices (asking for credit card numbers on a website requires lots of security measures which are expensive and beyond many programmers), as well as, sometimes, users' trust (I don't give my credit card number to a website I found two hours ago; it's different for PayPal or Google Checkout). The same balance doesn't exist for OpenID.
Count the number of clicks you need to do to authenticate or register with OpenID (if you don't have OpenID in the first place). It's high. Compare it to the simple authentication:
or the simple registration:
The same issue exists for example for Gravatar, and was mentioned in one of the recent SE podcasts.
Several OpenID providers require choice. Making a choice is scary. Example: Stack Exchange gives basically four providers: Stack Exchange itself, Google, Facebook and Yahoo!. This creates several questions for a user which doesn't have a clue:
When registering an OpenID account on a website, OpenID providers scare users. They often tell that the target website will obtain access to personal information, etc. If you read well, you understand that there is nothing dangerous. If you don't read, you imagine that the website will be able to access your GMail account, know the names of your kids, etc.
When an application (i.e. something which works outside a browser) requires to switch to a browser to authenticate (for example on mobile devices), it creates one of the most poor user experiences I've seen. I don't think there is an easy way to solve this issue, and consider the issue outside the scope of the question.
Here's an imaginary situation where a non-technical person discovers OpenID with a help of a person who knows how to use it:
— Ok, let's register on Stack Exchange. Fine, there is a "Sign up" link. I'm clicking on it. Wait... what are those four logos? Why Stack Exchange is not the only one? I'm registering on Stack Exchange, right? So why is it asking about Google, Facebook, etc.?
— In fact, the other three logos enable you to avoid creating different credentials for SE. You can simply use for example your Google account.
— Different credentials? I don't understand. I use the same ones on every website.
— This is not very secure. You're expected to use different passwords on every site.
— But you're suggesting that I use Google to register on SE. Doesn't it mean that the same password will be reused?
— No. In fact, only Google will ask you for a password. SE won't have any record about your password and let Google do all the work.
— I get it. Let's click on Google. Ok, it asks to provide my credentials. Here they are. "...stackexchange.com would like to: View your email address [Cancel] [Accept]". Hm. Ok. Let's say it can, while I don't actually understand the point.
In short, OpenID:
Don't force me into a choice.
There should be one provider by default. An option should be available to let the user pick a different provider.
Don't switch websites visually.
Nobody among non-technical persons look at the URI. Switching to a different SLD technically doesn't make any harm. But the visual aspect should remain the same. This can be done by making the visual aspect (and partially the content itself) customizable, but it may create security risks.
Require as little clicks as possible.
Registration through a BetterID should be as fast as an ordinary registration. You click on a "Sign up" link which switches you directly to the BetterID provider website (with an option, there, to move to a different provider), you enter your existent credentials, you submit them, and voila, it's done: you're back on the original website, and you're considered registered.
First of all, do user tests yourself.
It doesn't require special equipment: any screen recording software will do. You can run the test on any website you wish. Choose the one you think implements OpenID most conveniently.
You can gather people from the streets, friends (acceptance criteria: no degree in IT or Math or Physics, not even BSc), or in a pub.
Or you can do it remotely, through Skype or Hangout or join.me, offering 10 euros on a local Craiglist or something.
Here's a video on how it's done. There really isn't anything more into it. Just make sure you:
Just ask questions (mostly starting with "why") and ask the participant to think aloud, and make sure they understand it's not them who are tested but the website in question.
That's it, really.
Personally I think it's a consistency issue (this is not how "internet" works), and also a trust issue, but I haven't done usability tests in this regard so far.
