Thinking about logins

So, without getting into too much detail, part of my current job is thinking about how people interact with a fairly popular app. We’re going to be asking more people to log in to the app, and I want to make sure it’s a non-unpleasant thing.

Our IDAM solution, which shall remain nameless, provides an SDK to allow for “native” app logins. It also provides a standard web interface, which we are using on the website - but we can also put that into a web view in the app.

So which do we use?

Native app view

• Quicker to display (don’t have to load a web resource)* More flexible UX, fits in with what the app looks like overall* Possible better integration with OS level security features (biometrics and such)* Less flexible for upgrades (any changes will require app release)* Less flexible for alternative IDAM solutions - this one is interesting, because we don’t support other IDAM backends, but may do at some point…

Web view in app

• More in line with how other apps do it (ie Microsoft / Google / Twitter). Perversely, this may increase the trust that users have with how we do things.* Less nice for UX* More flexible for alternative IDAM things* Easier to implement (probably)* No need to update app to incorporate new features from IDAM platform (likely)

Since the web-view is mostly used for allowing third-party IDAM, which is not a thing for us at the moment, I’d be leaning towards using the SDK to provide a better experience for the users. However, there’s this perverse aura-of-trust that seems to come from the web view.

Writing this out hasn’t really helped. I just know I rail against web things, when app things are available.

Aside: Apple’s app guidelines say “Apps that use a third-party or social login service to set up or authenticate the user’s primary account with the app must also offer Sign in with Apple as an equivalent option.” So if we go down the third-party route, there will be so much more going on.