Monday, May 14, 2007

The Power of Language

On a Google Tech Talk video, Aza Raskin talks about his company Humanized's HCI product called Enso. He describes the model as

using the power of language to move around your system

With the Enso launcher running, to go to Google's home page a user just types 'Go Google' with the Caps Lock key held down. If Enso has been appropriately trained, the browser opens and you're there.

Why not applied to identity operations?

Hilite a URL, hold down Caps Lock and type 'Go SSO persona gaming'. After authenticating to their IDP, the user would be taken to the corresponding SP with an assertion carrying a transient identifier and attributes describing their online game playing.

Or, a user hilites a picture of a friend and types 'Go add colleague', or 'Go add mistress' as appropriate.

For those who want identity operations to be as difficult as possible, before proceeding with the requested transaction, the system could require that the user
  • answer a math question
  • compose a haiku
  • define user-centric identity

This way we keep out the riff-raff.

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