Re: Use cases updated w/ glossary and roles

On 07/31/2014 11:38 AM, Stuart Langridge wrote:
> On 31 July 2014 16:29, Tim Holborn <timothy.holborn@gmail.com 
> <mailto:timothy.holborn@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     On 1 Aug 2014, at 1:27 am, Stuart Langridge <sil@kryogenix.org
>     <mailto:sil@kryogenix.org>> wrote:
>     > could someone summarise what the NASCAR problem is?
>     http://indiewebcamp.com/NASCAR_problem
>
>
> Thank you, Tim! That's what I thought it might mean. I therefore think 
> that the term is being overapplied in criticism of the use cases. 
> Specifically, when people complain about the NASCAR problem I think 
> that they mean that they get repeatedly presented with a million 
> little icons all the time and they're almost all irrelevant almost all 
> the time. However, the use case document seems to flag any solution as 
> having a NASCAR problem if you are ever presented with a list of 
> choices, even once. Michael Williams identifies that this is avoided 
> by remembering the choice made, which seems sensible, but it seems to 
> me that if the web payments initiative is specifically designed to 
> allow me to choose between many ways to pay, then actually giving me 
> that choice is rather inherent to the process, isn't it?
>

The NASCAR problem, at its core, is about who gets to set the available 
options, not that there are options that you may choose from. It's not 
really about the UI. The UI issue is merely symptomatic.

In an ideal scenario, a person gets to define, for themselves, the set 
of options made available to them for performing a particular action on 
the Web. The current state of login on the Web is quite far from ideal; 
instead, the site you want to log into sets the available options and, 
in general, is only even capable of showing you options from a select 
few large identity providers. This limits competition in the identity 
provider space, creates lock in, leaks information to identity providers 
about the sites you log into, and prohibits people from being able to 
choose whatever identity provider(s) they want.

So, solving this problem doesn't mean that a person wouldn't still be 
provided a UI with a set of identity providers to choose from. It means 
that the *person* gets to choose that set and that the person may put 
*any* identity provider that implements a standard protocol into that list.


-- 
Dave Longley
CTO
Digital Bazaar, Inc.
http://digitalbazaar.com

Received on Friday, 1 August 2014 16:40:03 UTC