The document discusses usability in the context of federated access management, outlining key elements such as learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors, and satisfaction. It highlights challenges faced by institutions and publishers in providing consistent user experiences due to varying interfaces and multiple identity providers. The conclusion emphasizes the need for improved consistency and acknowledges ongoing efforts and studies aimed at enhancing usability across different platforms.

1. Putting the “rated” into federatedimproving the user experienceAndy Powell@andypowe11

2. Usability 101“the study of the ease with which people can employ a particular tool or other human-made object in order to achieve a particular goal” (Wikipedia)

3. A framework for usabilitylearnability: how easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the design?efficiency: once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks?memorability: when users return to the design after a period of not using it, how easily can they re establish proficiency?errors: how many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors?satisfaction: how pleasant is it to use the design?

4. Discovery, access and usewith federated access management, “usability” covers a lot of groundfrom discovery (Google search vs. institutional portal)…thru access… (the publisher’s website)to use (having the thing on your desktop)

5. Even ‘access’ spans multiple playersthe publisher’s websitethe federation WAYF service (in some cases)the institutional identity provider (IdP)

6. From perspective of the user(and the user’s institution)the institutional IdP is always the samebut every publisher website has different look and feel (for login)some use the WAYF, some don’tnot easy for the institution to provide ‘help’ documentation that covers all cases

7. From perspective of the publisherevery user sees the same websitebut each user has different IdP (and possibly WAYF)not easy for the publisher to provide ‘help’ documentation that covers everyone

8. And… wider contextneed for global publishers to accommodate multiple‘academic’ federationsneed for publishers to handlenon-academic audiences (local usernames/passwords, pay-per-view, etc.)need for publishers to handle social media (Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc.)

9. 3 examples…of current practice

25. Some ongoing work…back in 2009, JISC commissioned a “Publisher Interface Study” by Rhys Smith at Cardiffimproved WAYFembedded discovery module for Shibboleth (by Rod Widdowson, Steading System Software)KantaraUniversal Login Experience (ULX) Working GroupGoogle

48. Conclusionsusability across federated login is hardvariety of practice by today’s publishersvariety of exploratory work in progressneed to use this to drive more consistencyno longer just an ‘academic’ problem (c.f. Kantara and Google work)at Eduserv, we are watching this space