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<TITLE>Is a login button in scope?</TITLE>
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<FONT FACE="Book Antiqua"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'>Now that I’ve seen a couple examples of identity-enabled browsers (browsers with add-ons) having login buttons in the chrome...<BR>
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<IMG src="cid:3342464635_28473089" ><BR>
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...I wonder if we should design a regular (non-chrome) login button for the unmodified browser case.<BR>
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Why? <BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><OL><LI><FONT FACE="Book Antiqua"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'><B>Consistency & familiarity.</B> If we designed a login button that sites could use on their web pages and that was visually similar to the login button in the chrome, then one would reinforce the other. The user would hopefully say to themselves “oh, I get it. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in the chrome or on the page it does basically the same thing; it logs me in”.
</SPAN></FONT><LI><FONT FACE="Book Antiqua"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'><B>Reducing confusion</B>. If we had a regular login button, then identity-enabled browsers could parse the web page, find the “regular” button, and do something smart with it. Like maybe:<BR>
</SPAN></FONT><UL><LI><FONT FACE="Book Antiqua"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'><B>Grey it out. </B>And if you click instead of the login button in the chrome that you were supposed to click use this as a teaching moment: have a little bit of text pop up and explain that you’ll have a better experience click the one in the chrome.
</SPAN></FONT><LI><FONT FACE="Book Antiqua"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'><B>Hide it. </B>[Mozilla weave used to do this with OpenID text fields]. Of course, hiding widgets is considered heretical by many.
</SPAN></FONT><LI><FONT FACE="Book Antiqua"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'><B>Hook it. </B>The id-enabled browser could hook the form submit event and automatically do the same thing as if you had clicked the chrome login button.<BR>
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Besides, it seems like some kind of custom-designed login (more often called “Sign in”) button/link is really popular:<BR>
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<B>BestBuy</B>: <IMG src="cid:3342464635_28496234" ><BR>
<B>Amazon</B>: <IMG src="cid:3342464635_28482525" ><BR>
<B>Oracle</B>: <IMG src="cid:3342464635_28493951" ><BR>
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<B>Ohio State University:</B> [well okay they don’t have one on the home page]<BR>
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<B>New York Times:</B> <IMG src="cid:3342464635_28505323" ><BR>
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So if we designed one, we’d just be offering up a “standardized” icon for this function as our recommended “best practice” if indeed this is what we decide.<BR>
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Reactions?<BR>
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--Paul<BR>
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