I have moved to wonderful Copenhagen for a year, to finish off the AT-ONE project and complete my PhD. As an immigrant, I have had to sign up for all kinds of different things; doctors, social security number, insurance etc. This is giving me quite an insight into a lot of services over here. Today, one particular one has enraged me, and motivated me to rant here. In principle, it sounds good, its called NEM-ID which translates into “Simple ID”. Several major service providers have collaborated to develop a simple sign in for all kinds of services. However, it is a massive fail when you try to use it, and they have managed to make something that is basically a good and simple idea into something quite complicated. The interesting thing is that every element of the solution is just off being acceptaible. Together, the additionality of these elements makes it a hopelessly frustrating service as a whole.
Here are a few of its problems:
1. Painfully long wait for log-in info. I have had to wait two weeks to get the log-in information in the post. In that time I haven’t been able to pay any bills, access my netbank or public services.
2. Expectation management fail: Huge gap between promise and delivery. Promise = simple, shared solution that gives secure access to commercial and public services. Delivery – on first access, a big message saying that it doesn’t give access to most services without an additional digital signature (but doesnt tell you what this means).
3. Lack of first time information. When you get the pretty introduction letter, with user ID there is no reference anywhere on the letter about how you access “Nem-ID”. There is no URL on any of the documents or contracts or passwords. They obviously want you to guess it. My best guess was  NemID.dk , but that takes you to a private company. Surprise – its nemid.nu which looks suspiciously like a phishing site. Surely a nationally shared secure access site can have a .dk address to give it credibility.
4. Weak first-time password solution. The first time you log in  you have to use a temporary password, that promptly expires. If you get an error message, as I did, you are lost, because the password has expired. This results in an extra one week wait to get a new temporary password in the post.
5. Poor customer service solution. Send an email request to customer service, and after a wait of about an hour you receive a reply that is so ambiguously designed that you are unsure if its just a copy of your request, or whether there is an answer hidden in it somewhere. All it needs is a line saying” you sent us a request, this is just a copy of what you sent, we will reply in x hours/days”. No, none of that and there is no unique id for the mail, nor any kind words promising a reply within a specific period. Come on, this is like going back to error messages in windows 95, and further destroys any remaining trust you have in the system.
Together, these small things have managed to totally erode any benefits I might have from the simple ID solution. From high expectations (one sign on called Simple ID) I have ended up with serious trust problems. I don’t trust the system at all, and thats not a good start for any national secure system. Can somebody please send the people at DanID on an interaction design and a service design course.