Limitations in the protocol affect logging into Get Satisfaction using OpenID.
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I have this problem, too!
Tell me when someone solves it.
The more people who report this problem, the more it gets noticed.
The more people who report this problem, the more it gets noticed.
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Inappropriate?Hi, y0mbo. That's correct -- because of the nature of OpenID, which requires you to go to a separate page in order to complete the login process, we're unable to save your data if you use it to login via our in-line login form. Unfortunately, there's no way around this because of the way OpenID is designed.
We do our best to warn people when using the in-line login form that this is the case, and we recommend that people who wish to login using OpenID use the main login form located here.
I wish we could do it differently, but this is the state of the art at the moment.
I’m sad we can't do it better
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Inappropriate?Not mentioned by Lane was that we could auto-save your forms for you and repopulate them after the signing. We certainly want to be able to provide that, but given the cost of implementing such a form-saver was something we didn't have time for right now, and we didn't want to hold up offering OpenID support.
It was a "Something is better than nothing" decision. -
Inappropriate?Thank you, Scott, for your comments. As a web developer, I understand the technology involved and that an auto-save is possible. As a businessman, I also understand the trade-offs involved in choosing features to include.
Now that I'm signed up here at GetSatisfaction, I suspect I won't run into this problem again ;-)
I’m happy to get a good answer.
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Inappropriate?Instead of tossing up an alert when the user clicks the OpenID login option, just spin off the login form in a subwindow. After the user logs in, have the OpenID provider redirect back to a page that tells the opener window to go ahead and submit the form, and then closes the login window.
Problem solved.
I’m document.forms[0].submit()'ing my comments today
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I hate popups with a passion. If openid wasn't hard enough for people to understand, I fear relying on popups and cross window scripting would be too much. -
I hate losing my data with a passion.
Robert's idea is a good one, and is very similar to how ma.gnolia allows you to submit a bookmark url in a new window (one of their bookmarklet options). It isn't obtrusive at all. -
Wait a minute... I'm just trying to help out here. Everything you and Lane said above is based on the premise that the only solution to the problem is to auto-save form data, which you don't have time to implement. Which simply isn't true - logging in using a separate window solves the problem quite nicely, and with 1/10th the effort required to autosave.
So why are you coming back with strawman arguments about popups and users' ability to grok OpenID? The least you could do is acknowledge this is a viable solution. Not to mention ...
- I'm sure you're perfectly aware that an iframe can be used to work around whatever issues you may have with popup windows.
- It's not your responsibility to make people understand OpenID. If a user is logging in with an OpenID they already "get it". If they aren't, none of this is an issue for them.
- I have no idea how you're connecting popups and cross-window scripting to a user's ability to understand OpenID. -
Hey, don't lump me into this one! I'm intrigued by the pop-up possibility, but will defer to Scott since he's the lead architect of our system. We'll see what he says.
Sigh. OpenID, you vex me so. -
Inappropriate?
Wait a minute... I'm just trying to help out here. Everything you and Lane said above is based on the premise that the only solution to the problem is to auto-save form data, which you don't have time to implement. Which simply isn't true - logging in using a separate window solves the problem quite nicely, and with 1/10th the effort required to autosave.
I don't think you get what I'm doing here; I'm having a discussion. I never said or meant to imply it was the only way to solve the problem, I said it was the way that I knew about and what I thought was the best next step. I understand you are trying to help, and I am very appreciative. Part of dicussing what you have brought up and testing it and forming an opinion of my own. It's called being the foil, or a devil's advocate: by bringing up holes in an idea, I can get more information from you that I don't follow or see on my own. I'm not trying to be dismissive or negative, I'm trying to understand better... I'm not a genius nor a telepath.
So why are you coming back with strawman arguments about popups and users' ability to grok OpenID? The least you could do is acknowledge this is a viable solution.
I think it would work. I don't think it would be a great solution, but it could be better than our current solution. Here's why I don't think it would be better than a staight forward form-saving solution. It forks user attention and brings up corner cases. So, we pop up a window that lets the user login with their open id: What happens if the user goes back to that window and clicks off of the login window on accident (the cancel action) but then completes the OpenID login? What do they expect to happen?
I myself got caught with a popup problem the just last night that caused tons confusion on sony's support site: In this case, the links on one page were reusing the popup window which was behind the first window. That's my reservation, that we won't do it well enough and we'll land into a situation like that.
I'm sure you're perfectly aware that an iframe can be used to work around whatever issues you may have with popup windows.
I think that would work much better than a popup, and will certainly be something I'll see If I can work up with ted. I like this solution much better than a popup because it doesn't fork the user's attention, it provides a straightforward path. If I had not made my last post, I would have never got this nugget from you. That's why I play devil's advocate, to get knowledge from those smarter than me to address the concerns I see. It might not be the best way to approach it, but It's what comes natural to how I converse.
It's not your responsibility to make people understand OpenID. If a user is logging in with an OpenID they already "get it". If they aren't, none of this is an issue for them.
I disagree. I think it is my responsibility to educate users on the features of my application and ensure to the best of my ability they don't get confused by any widget.
I have no idea how you're connecting popups and cross-window scripting to a user's ability to understand OpenID.
Confusion is additive. You can see it in action if you run someone through your site. As things aren't making sense (say, you're going to fast through the explanation or aren't explaining things deliberately as a user test) you can tell when someone gets totally confused by when they take their hand off the mouse and they sit back in their chair. I would like Get Satisfaction to have the best user experience possible, and so I am always testing and forming opinions about whether something would impact a users ability to understand something on the application. If something for the benefit of 1% of our user base (the openid users) adds confusion for the other 99% of our users, I choose to be wary about implementing it until I know more or have a better picture in my head about the solution.
Edit: I didn't actually say I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I appeared to be shooting down your ideas. It wasn't my intention, and I'll get better about that in the future.
I’m thankful
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I'd be very interested in having the conversation about both moving users through a signup/signin process that holds their data safe until they've validated their identity... as well as doing something with iframes.
More and more I'm becoming a pragmatist and believe that people don't really look at URL-bars anyway... we need better solutions to prevent phishing -- user education is a piece of the puzzle, but not the only one -- and shouldn't come at the expense of creating excellent user experiences. -
Inappropriate?Hey Scott, thanks for the apology. And I'll apologize in return - I'm sorry for letting myself be one of those prickly users that is a pain in the ass to deal with. Trust me, I know what it's like to have to juggle the demands of your job as an engineer with all the non-engineering stuff, including dealing with a constantly attention-starved user community. I appreciate you taking the time to respond to this.
I don't think we need to belabor the popups .vs. iframes .vs. autosave issue any more. You get it, and I trust you are more than capable of moving forward with that idea should you choose to do so. (For my part, I don't feel strongly one way or another about this issue. My prickliness came not from feeling this is urgent, but because it seemed like a good solution was being dismissed for trivial reasons, something I've become rather sensitized to in my career as a developer. Bygones. :-) )
It's not your responsibility to make people understand OpenID. If a user is logging in with an OpenID they already "get it". If they aren't, none of this is an issue for them.
I disagree. I think it is my responsibility to educate users on the features of my application and ensure to the best of my ability they don't get confused by any widget.
I guess I misunderstood your original statement about OpenID being hard to understand. I assumed you were referring to OpenID, the concept, being hard to understand (which it can be), which implied it was your responsibility to educate people on what OpenID is and what it can do for them. I feel pretty strongly that is not a job you guys should be taking on. That's the responsibility of companies like us, Zenbe, who will come to rely on GSFN and want to allow our users to login with their Zenbe credentials - i.e. we would educate them as part of the process of referring them to the GSFN forums.
But if you are just referring to the operation of GSFN's OpenID login feature being hard to understand, than I agree with you 100%.
Cheers! -
Inappropriate?Thanks Robert,
I've got this medical condition I some times have trouble controlling; it's called insufferable asshole syndrome. The funny thing is that it affects my mouth. :)
I don't think you're being a pain in the ass to deal with, I think I had mentally attached your persona to another user account and you got some of his/her bad karma. Looking back I was being unfair. I'll try to be better about that in the future. I tend to have trouble when I get suggestions from users that go up against priorities set by my superiors. Rather than getting angry at my bosses, I tend to project on the faceless internet-peoples.
I totally get your point, and it is something I definitely want to get in place. We want to add support for linking multiple OpenID accounts to one GSFN account as another means for account integration, and I imagine changes like you were describing would get slated into that feature when we get around to it. -
Inappropriate?Might be a good idea to change this idea's title to something more descriptive. I typed out and submitted another about the same thing, even though this one showed up in the list of search results.
(Incidentally, after I deleted my idea I was directed to a URL that seemed to consist of an entire page's worth of source code! My browser didn't like that very much.)
I’m annoyed
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Inappropriate?I'm curious if the "1% of our user base (the openid users)" is actually true. I would suspect its higher than that since this is a fairly new service and I think you would have quite a large percentage of early adopters.
I would also like to see this fixed. I really hate loosing data that I've already typed in (or copy/pasting it), much more than I would hate having a popup come up to sign in.
It seems silly to even have the OpenID logo and link on the inline login box. You are just teasing us OpenID users. It doesn't actually work. I'd rather see some text explaining the loop we have to jump through (opening a new browser window, or whatever it is) in order to get OpenID to work without loosing our comment.
I’m frustrated that everytime I try use Get Satisfaction, I forget about this problem, and loose my comments
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Inappropriate?Regarding the 1% issue: That number has crept up to about 3%, for both windows live id and open id. Curiously, there is about an 85% overlap of people who have both.
Regarding your frustration: Unfortunately, the only option available to me is to apologize for our lack of complete support. I'm sorry. We're in process of revamping our in-line sign in form, and I'll make sure that we improve the verbiage, if not the function, of the form. -
Inappropriate?I have an idea, inform people that they must log in _BEFORE_ allowing them to fill a comment form. Is that so hard? sorry about my tone, but I'm still sore about losing my form data. It might sound extreme, but with all the sites out on the interwebs, that annoyance is enough to make me ditch a site for good. Why bait and switch users with the login form? Put the login out front! That said I like the interface, esp. the faces.
I’m upset about losing my comment data
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I totally understand your frustration. That's a very good suggestion and I think we'll be trying to implement something like that soon! -
Some folks feel participation is boosted by not requiring it up-front. Interesting read if you have the time: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/... -
@Eric Suesz
"Giving the user all the necessary information before they start might make them not want to comment at all, so let's not tell them about all the hoops they must jump through until they've already invested lots of time into their comment and are less likely to turn back" DOES probably work, but that doesn't mean it's an honest practice. Give users the info up front, then let them decide.
Plus, how does dropping people's 1st comment when they try to login (creating a negative first impression) boost participation? I guess I stayed... -
I'm just pointing out that others feel differently and that there is some debate over which is the best way to go. It's certainly not my intention to try and change your mind, sloansteddi. -
Inappropriate?@eric
did you read all the way down on the link you sent? it says the communication your site provides is great, then says (under point 7):
The GetSatisfaction interface allows you to fill in your comment about a company or product and then click the “Post” button. Instead of seeing your feedback posted, you’re greeted with an unexpected “Log in or register” message. Not good, considering the customer may already be frustrated.
It seems that smashingmagazine is has the same complaint I do. Nowhere in the article does it say that this "a great way to increase participation" or any such thing, so I don't quite understand why this was offered as an example of the "debate" over this topic (I'm sure examples are out there, but this isn't one)
Again, I think this site has an AWESOME interface, very intuitive (and the faces are really creative), I just have a problem with that one part. But I think it's a big (annoying) problem. and again, I stayed, so obviously despite my griping, this didn't keep me from using your site (though other sites, yes).
I’m ay ess dee eff
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Inappropriate?Yes, I did read that. I think you have set this up as some sort of argument between us, which is unfortunate. I'm simply trying to point out an interesting take on these kinds of issues.
I’m not here to argue with you
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