Authentication and automation possibilities  |  September 8, 2009  

This seems to me the week that I'm thinking about interfaces and interaction.

About a year ago I did a blog entry on interface shifts. One area I had not thought about at all was the use of the security interface hardware as a more general interaction method. This article in IEEE spectrum talks about interesting options that some devices are using to automate tasks by identifying which finger was used to initiate the authentication request. For example:

• using your index finger may mean authenticate me and then take me to the email system
• the ring finger may initiate authentication and then take me to the corporate ERP systems

Most of us have at least 10 options...

Even though it may take only a few seconds out of the task, a few seconds added up over time can have a significant quality of life impact.

Multi-touch, gestures, speech recognition or even just touch on the GUI in combination with these authentication options provide a whole other set of interaction possibilities to modify and automate actions within the enterprise.

With every new interface comes a whole other set of opportunities beyond what were originally intended and it is up to our imagination to take advantage of them.

Charlie Bess
EDS - The Next Big Thing Blog