November 17th, 2008
Using Email for OpenID by Henry Ford
by Tony Haile | 
2 Comments
The scene: 1905, Henry Ford is looking over plans in his factory as the sounds of vehicles being put together clang around him. An assistant interrupts:
Asst: ‘Boss, I hate to break it to you but we’ve got a problem.’
Ford: ‘What now? Are the mirrors making objects seem closer than they really are?’
Asst: ‘No, boss. We’ve been doing some user research on this whole automobile thing and the news isn’t great.’
Ford: ‘What do you mean? The automobile is going to revolutionize travel for everyone!’
Asst: ‘You know that and I know that boss, it’s just proving hard to get people to understand that. Using horses is all they know and the user testing suggests that getting people to switch to something so foreign as an automobile will be near impossible. Maybe we could make some changes so that adoption is easier?’
Ford: ‘What are the specific problems and what do you want to do about it?’
Asst: ‘Well, for one, users just don’t get this whole steering wheel idea. They think it’s a spare in case one of the others falls off. Would it be possible to put in some reins instead?’
Ford: ‘Go on’
Asst: ‘Also this whole one pedal to go and another to stop. It’s alien and counter intuitive. Users are used to using both feet in concert. Can they just kick the sides to go and then pull on the reins to stop?’
Ford: ‘This is ridiculous. Major changes in technology have always had adoption issues and the going is tough. The key is for us to improve and show that we can create greater value for our users rather than shackling new technology to old in a short-termist bid to encourage adoption. It sounds as though if you had your way we’d just strap an internal combustion engine to a damn horse!’
Asst: ‘Oh, have they already told you about plan B?’
Ford: ‘you’re fired.’
Imagine if the story above was actually about trying to convince people that horses weren’t for getting around, but were actually for milking. Forget cows and goats. Horses are what we should be milking.
Similarly, imagine what it feels like to be told that a website address is actually the way you identify yourself to other websites. Today, when people want to go somewhere on the Web, they type in an address (well, unless they use a search box). They understand that something that looks like a web address means they’re visiting a web site.
Now, with OpenID, we’re expecting people to type in a website address to log into that other website they want to get into. “Why am I typing in my website?” they wonder, as they try to log into another website.
Obviously, I’m glossing over what a URL really is. While readers of this blog will know the implementation details behind a URL and why it technically works for OpenID, normal users already have the notion that a URL means a place on the web.
OpenID is expecting normal users to completely redefine what a web address means to them.
Instead of riding the horse, you’re actually supposed to milk it.
I see this comment string provoking a massively convoluted metaphor but what the hey (or should that be hay?).
You could use the same metaphor about email as a username itself. An email address is supposed to be something you use to send and receive mail, not to use to log in to random web services, and yet it all worked out.
And to make this really tortuous the key point here is that if we have something we think is valuable, we shouldn’t be trying to teach the horse to say moo, instead we should be showing why horse milk is just so damn tasty.