Common Credential Store for Multi-User Web Sign-In
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Service providers face challenges in providing a customized experience to multiple users sharing the same client device, as traditional techniques require individual authentication and do not allow for tailored experiences until credentials are entered, and users must remember different credentials for various services.
Innovation Solution
Implementing multiuser web service sign-in client side components that expose an authentication interface to provide access to a common credential store, allowing multiple client applications to share customized user information and authentication data, enabling a common user experience across applications without the need for repeated authentication.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If traditional individual authentication techniques are used, then service providers can identify users and provide customized experiences, but users must remember and enter different credentials for each service and authentication delays customized experience delivery
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple credential stores into a single common credential store that is shared across multiple client applications. This consolidation allows users to authenticate once and have their credentials automatically available to multiple applications, eliminating the need to remember and enter credentials separately for each service while maintaining the ability to provide customized experiences.
Solution Approach 2:
The common credential store is designed to serve multiple functions and multiple applications simultaneously. It acts as a universal authentication repository that any client application can access, providing both credential storage and authentication state management across the entire application suite, thereby simplifying user interaction while enabling personalized experiences.
2Productivity
If users share client devices to access resources, then device utilization is improved, but service providers cannot identify which user is accessing resources and cannot tailor experiences
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an authentication interface as an intermediary layer between multiple users sharing a device and the service provider. This interface manages multiple credential stores and authentication states, allowing the service provider to identify which user is accessing resources through the authenticated context while maintaining high device utilization by enabling seamless switching between users.
3Reliability
If multiple credential stores are maintained for different applications, then application-specific authentication is enabled, but system complexity and credential management burden increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the credential management system into distinct credential stores, each associated with a specific client application, while providing a unified interface for accessing them. This segmentation maintains application-specific authentication requirements and reliability while managing complexity through modular organization and centralized coordination by the authentication interface.
Data Source
AI summary
Embodiments of multi-user web service sign-in client side components are presented herein. In an implementation, the currently authenticated user account of a first application of a client is transferred to another application of a client. In another implementation, a common credential store is used to share data for a plurality of user accounts associated with a client between a plurality of applications of the client, and for the applications to output multi-user interfaces having portions corresponding to the plurality of accounts.