Ask HN: Why do we now show username/password fields on separate screens?

#1

Post by restlessdesign » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:08 PM UTC

Some time in the last year or two, it has become fashionable to have login flows consist of two individual views: one view where you enter your username/email, and another view for your password.

Why the sudden divergence from rendering these within the same form in the same view? Why the extra click? It’s also annoying from the perspective of password managers when not done properly.

Re: Ask HN: Why do we now show username/password fields on separate screens?

#2

Post by throw03172019 » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:13 PM UTC

This has been brought up before and the answer was for enterprise customers. It allows other ways to login based on your account.

Re: Ask HN: Why do we now show username/password fields on separate screens?

#3

Post by nonsapreiche » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:18 PM UTC

why not using only the password?

Re: Ask HN: Why do we now show username/password fields on separate screens?

#4

Post by carlsborg » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:36 PM UTC

Single sign on. Users accessing online services, for example AWS console, from within the corporate environment, may not use passwords. Identity is federated from whatever corporarate directory service the org uses.

Re: Ask HN: Why do we now show username/password fields on separate screens?

#5

Post by Raed667 » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:46 PM UTC

Twilio did explain this in their blog post

https://www.twilio.com/blog/why-username-and-password-on-two...

Re: Ask HN: Why do we now show username/password fields on separate screens?

#6

Post by ecedeno » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 8:03 PM UTC

It's for enterprise (and other) customers with SSO. No all sites require two steps for this, though. HackerRank lets you leave the password field empty, and based on whether you have SSO enabled it either redirects to that or returns an error.

Re: Ask HN: Why do we now show username/password fields on separate screens?

#7

Post by ironmagma » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 9:12 PM UTC

Those who are saying SSO should take note that it’s not really necessary to use this pattern for SSO. For example, Microsoft uses the pattern that they will redirect you as soon as your email looks like an SSO email. This has the benefit of allowing a user to enter their password before their username (not doing so being a major pet peeve of mine when copying a password from a password manager).

Re: Ask HN: Why do we now show username/password fields on separate screens?

#8

Post by kayman » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 12:04 AM UTC

I’ve answered this previously here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24238783

In a nutshell it’s to handle federated identities.

Re: Ask HN: Why do we now show username/password fields on separate screens?

#9

Post by the_enigma » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 4:22 AM UTC

nonsapreiche wrote: post #3

why not using only the password?

Lol

Re: Ask HN: Why do we now show username/password fields on separate screens?

#10

Post by fred_is_fred » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 5:36 AM UTC

While we're on this topic, why have some sites started refusing to prompt me for my password and instead are sending codes to my email. slack.com is a great example. It's like 2FA without the first factor.