08 — Case study
All workCentral Authentication System
One identity layer for every product on the platform, so a person signs in once rather than once per portal. Sign-in and sign-up, session and device handling, recovery, second factors, and the roles and permissions each product reads from. Add which products sit behind it. Almost none of it is a screen anyone wants to spend time on, which is the whole design problem: it has to be exact and it has to be quick.
01
The problem
For the business
What it fixed — separate credentials per product, or no single place to govern who can reach what.
For the people using it
What the people using it were actually struggling to do.
02
Constraints
What limited us
- A real constraint — what the auth provider allowed, what existing products expected
What we were aiming at
- Goal one
- Goal two
03
My scope
What I owned
- Designed and built the system front end on my own
- Designed sign-in, sign-up, recovery, sessions and the second-factor flows
- Designed how roles and permissions are expressed, since every product reads them
- Add how you handled the failure and lockout states
What I didn’t
- Did not build the auth back end
- Security decisions owned by engineering
04
Research
What we found
- A finding that changed your mind
- A finding with a number behind it
Where it hurt
- Pain point
- Pain point
05
Decisions
Decision 01
The specific problem this decision solved
Chosen
What you shipped
Rejected, and why
The alternatives you considered and why each lost
Decision 02
The specific problem this decision solved
Chosen
What you shipped
Rejected, and why
The alternatives you considered and why each lost
06 — The work
04 screens
desktopScreen name — what it does, and the decision it reflects
07
What happened
Measured
- Measured change, with the before and after
Knock-on effects
- What it unlocked for the business or team
08
In hindsight
I’d do differently
- What you would do differently
What it taught me
- What this project taught you
Next — 09