This site is mostly focused on showcasing good solutions that solve common problems. A design pattern which however hasn’t received much attention on UI-patterns.com is a solution to avoid having to use another pattern in the first place.
At Designing Social Interfaces, a pattern library that focuses on patterns for the social web, I found the The password Anti-Pattern particularly interesting.
In this pattern article Erin Malone explains how websites utilize third-party services for logging in. The idea behind the pattern is that you won’t have to remember a dozen different passwords for all the different services you’ve signed up for, but can do with just a few main account providers like Gmail, hotmail, or OpenID.
What do you think? Is this an actual pattern? The thought is definitely interesting, but using “Anti-” to me indicates a solution that is known to be “bad”.
