Shibboleth Developers

["David L. Wasley" <>]

I apologize in advance if this is inappropriate for this list.  I 
think it's important enough to warrant awareness, at least.

I ran into a 'user interface problem' that could be very confusing 
for non-technical users (and could generate help desk calls).  I 
think it's something implementers should consider if they haven't 
already.  (I didn't find anything on this issue in the shib-dev 
email...)

I went to a Shib'ed SP the other day, was redirected by their WAYF to 
my IdP (ProtectNetwork), and got the login screen.  Of course I had 
forgotten my password so I clicked on the link provided, went thru 
the rigamarole, and got logged in.  But of course the IdP's server 
had no state information to know what to do with me!  I basically had 
to start over at the SP.

So - the issue is how to provide a "forgotten password" mechanism 
that (usually) will return the user to the authN page where they 
landed initially.  Someone suggested that the IdP's authN page could 
use a pop-up window to achieve this.  I'm not a web designer (IANAWD) 
so I leave it to the experts to suggest the "right way" to handle 
this.

In any case, it would make the user interface much more friendly to 
design a flow that would feel more natural to the non-technical human.

        David

(Flames off list please)