Login / Lock screen improvements for fingerprint login
I'm looking at improve the interaction with fingerprint devices when it comes to login and unlock and right now we've various issues
UX
-
The device is activated (even in single-user scenario) only after the user hit Enter or clicked its account
- Modern devices are expected to be awake and active for fingerprints verification the whole time the screen is on (and in many operating systems, all the time when non suspended)
-
There's no visual indication of what is happening (errors included), currently we just show an
(or swipe finger)
message the whole time (related to GNOME/gdm#567), while I would expect:
- When the finger is on the sensor (if supported) we show an indication of it (highlight the fp icon?)
- On fingerprint authentication error (currently we do nothing):
- We have retry errors (like finger is not well read)
- In these cases maybe we can just adapt the icon, while no message is needed
- Fatal errors (like on device failures)
- Probably being a bit more verbose here could be useful
- We have retry errors (like finger is not well read)
- On fingerprint no-match (currently we do nothing):
- A visual indication should be given, probably using the wiggle effect as we do for normal login
- On fingerprint match (currently we do nothing):
- The lockscreen may take few milliseconds to hide, so once we have a match, the password field should be probably disabled and the spinner running, as it happens for normal login.
Visual
Given the UX aspect to solve, the visual part of it was mostly defined defined already by the lockscreen mockups:
So, correct me if I'm wrong: If a device is available once we lock the screen the fingerprint icon should be shown (and the underneath daemon activated).
However, how to present the finger-on-sensor
state, the retry-messages
or no-match messages
in such case?
As per the image above, we should show a message (as said, we're ignoring it right now), but should be that replacing (temporary?) the fingerprint (or smart-card, if any) images, right? Should this wiggle as we do in g-c-c?
The match / no match error, should be just handled in this way (s/password/fingerprint/
)?