Revised discovery project

 

REF2: Revised Discovery Project

Background

In terms of the user experience for federated access management, the ‘discovery problem’ / WAYF design has long been highlighted as a problem area. It has also been a fast-moving area, with several different solutions and proposals being put forward within the past year alone. Previous reports to REFEDS have put forward suggestions of how this problem may be tackled, and technical developments now exist in a mature state to support a targeted campaign to improve the user experience of federated access management.

Three major initiatives in this area can be noted:

  • The Kantara ULX experience.
  • The Shibboleth Embedded Discovery Service.
  • DiscoJuice.

None of these initiatives have the resources to synthesize and actively promote their developments to service providers, whilst REFEDS is ideally placed to provide such commentary.

This work item follows up on some key points emerged from the initial Discover Project Proposal and the EduID Working Group.

Work Plan

Following on from the REFEDS meeting in Prague (see Discover Project Poll ) and suggestions made by participants, the user interface and discovery workpackage will seek to undertake the following actions:

  • Design a toolkit for publishers that clearly lays out the business model for embedded discovery and supporting materials for the current technical implementations available. The firm Mickey & Mallory are suggested as good candidates to help design such a guide, with editorial work coming from within the REFEDS community.
  • Establish an editorial board for the toolkit.
  • Define standardised practises for logo sizes and error pages / messages used by Service Providers.

The work should begin asap and completed within a 3 month period.

Promotion

The key messages to services providers will be:

  • 1 login link, 1 experience
  • easy implementation.
  • SP brand focussed solution.

REFEDS Actions

  • Comments, suggestions and approval of this work is sought.
  • A budget of 10,000 euros is requested for this work, although it is thought that the effort could be delivered well within this figure. Revised figures will be submitted following discussions with designers.
  • Volunteers for the editorial board are sought.

Mandatory project Name

ROUS - Redirecting Our User's Securely

Output

 

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