Period
Apr. 2023 ~ Oct. 2023
Role
Lead Product Designer
Objective
- Make it easy to securely save and sign in to websites and apps with users’ credentials, including Passkey, and manage personal information within Samsung Pass.
Responsibilities
- Collaborated with the engineering team to enhance the usability of autofill information and optimized the user interfaces for the Passkey experience on the latest Android OS.
Results
- As a new software update was released in November 2023 from the Galaxy S23 series, users started finding a Passkey and adding it to their devices. As this update will spread to older Galaxy devices in 2024, the sign-in experience will be even more convenient than before.
Google announced a new API for the latest OS, Android 14, that lets users store all credentials, including passkeys, in November 2023. Samsung was notified of this development due to its partnership with Google before publicly releasing it in early 2023. Our team was drafting this implementation, which was planned for release in late 2023.
The problem
- The new API, Credential Manager, combines Passkeys and traditional password authentication into a single interface. Therefore, Samsung Pass, which previously only supported password autofill, required an update to support Passkey and introduce it.
- With the abundance of password manager apps available, it’s essential to keep track of login credentials efficiently. Galaxy devices should seamlessly manage and intelligently suggest logins, eliminating users needing to remember where they’ve saved them.
Project approach
As Passkey will be first introduced to Android users, my responsibility was to inform users thoroughly and guide them towards using it, as it provides better security and convenience than passwords. Additionally, I must ensure that the previous usability of password autofill remains intact for apps and websites that do not yet support Passkeys.
Design exploration
Collaborated with an internal UX writer, I suggested the critical benefits of Passkeys for first-time users and provided a link to learn more. I tried to meet Google’s guidelines to inform these users properly while keeping Samsung smartphones’ voice tone and manner.
The new API now allows users to customize their password manager by being open to any credential providers and allowing them to be enabled simultaneously. To incorporate this feature, I tailored a unified sign-in interface that offers users a choice of preferred services, which can be easily changed through the settings.
The final product
Launched the Passkey feature on the latest Android OS, allowing users to sign in to apps and websites without entering IDs and passwords by upgrading software for supported Galaxy smartphones and tablets in November 2023. (Samsung Newsroom Korea Link)
