This is a call for all developers of websites and web applications that have a user authentication system. If I have to register for your site, please don’t make me register again for your forums or customer support app!
It’s fine to use third party software for discussion forums, but it’s important to put forth the effort required to complete a smooth integration of that software with your own site. Forcing your users to register again on a completely different system with different rules just to receive support or report bugs on your system is nonsensical, confusing and infuriating. Instead, you should consider the user experience from a customer’s perspective and realize that they already have far too many logins for multitudinous sites and applications; you should aim to ease their burden by only adding one more to that list. Or, better yet, don’t add any to that list by supporting OpenID and thus letting your users log in with credentials that they already hold.
It’s possible that a large reason for the lack of integration is the [lack of] ease with which one can integrate with third party forum and helpdesk software, so how can we make that better? If it’s painful to use your custom authentication system with an existing piece of software, how can we put pressure on the teams producing that software to make it easier? Do we need some sort of common API for shared authentication? (Something tells me that this already exists. LDAP? Maybe that’s too heavy.) Regardless, we need to make the developers of forum and other third party customer-facing software feel the pain of siloed authentication so we can move past this dreadful state of affairs.
I appreciate very much those organizations that place a high value on quality of user experience and do have fully and seamlessly integrated systems. You make the world a better place. Can we help other developers by publishing guides or code to help these integrations become more ubiquitous? Beyond just the integration of authentication (though that’s the largest hurdle), integrating the UI and visual elements of third party software is also a huge contributor to the overall quality and smoothness of the user experience. No developer or site publisher should be left uneducated about the perils of inconsistent user experiences, so we will have to spread the word.
Who’s with me?
I can’t tell you how many websites have actually lost me because of that kind of thing. I typically stop using their service due to it. I just feel like…if I can’t get thru easily to customer service or whatever else I need…I won’t bother and then, I just become disinterested in the site.
What really irks me is some of these domain hosting services who require you start an account with them just to ask them a question that you want to ask so you can determine if you want to use their company to host your site. Heh. Ultrahost does that with their support forums, and for that very reason, I just never bothered with them…. and they don’t even know they’re losing business because they have stuck a block in the communication between them and possible customers.
I’m very much with you, Brad. I feel lucky that I can’t remember when was the last time I ran into that trouble.
It’s unprofessional, to say the least.
The usability and security folks have united on the less credentials is better front.
It’s good to see. :)