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1P_Blake
Community Manager
Community ManagerWe're the team behind 1Password’s latest product enhancements. Ask us anything! (Wednesday, February 12th)
Hey everyone! đź‘‹
We're the team behind 1Password’s latest product enhancements. Ask us anything!
We’ll be hosting an AMA right here on February 12th at 9AM PT / 12AM ET with 1P_MattG - 1Password’s Senior Director of Product, End User Experience.
This round of product enhancements includes exciting updates like a smoother mobile experience, better item creation and navigation, new ways to stay secure, and much more.
Starting today, you can RSVP to the AMA and drop your questions here in this thread, and then we’ll answer them live during the AMA on February 12th at 9AM PT / 12PM ET!
We can’t wait to chat with you and kick off our first AMA in the new 1Password Community!
Check out our blog to find out more about our new and improved features.
EDIT: The AMA has now officially concluded. Thank you to everyone for taking the time to chat with us!
If you have any follow-up questions or feedback, feel free to drop them here. This thread will remain open until February 14th, 2025, at 5:00 PM ET, so you still have time to continue the discussion.
Thanks again for making our first AMA in the 1Password Community a great one! đź’™
Our AMA Host
Matt Grimes
Senior Director of Product, End User Experience, 1Password
1P_BlakeWhat are we waiting on here? I'm sat here refreshing both this, and the event page and not seeing anything "live" happening, no live video, no live audio.
I'm a bit confused. Sorry
Ok, I see Matt has replied to a message. So no audio/video then i'm guessing. Seems a bit weird to call this a "live" AMA. What's the difference between posting a regular topic/thread and awaiting a reply, to this, post a comment and await a reply?
- 1P_Blake
Hey rctneil! Sorry for the confusion! This is a forum-based AMA, similar to the ones we’ve hosted over on r/1Password.
When we say “live,” we mean that 1P_MattG is here actively responding to questions in real-time between 12:00–2:00 PM ET today. So if you post a question while the AMA is active, you’ll get a response much faster than a typical forum thread! 🙂
Ok, makes sense. Appreciate the input.
One big frustration I have on a daily basis is the UI for password copying, revealing and showing in large layout. I HATE the dropdown UI. It's too cumbersome.
Please can you at least add an option for 3 stacked buttons on the right hand side for those options. or a grid of 4 buttons. Just make them one click rather than two. I always have this issue so thought i'd raise it again (as i have raised it previously but better raise it again if it's still an issue for me)
- 1P_MattG
1Password Team
That's interesting feedback. The philosphy here was that we make the most common behavior we see from our research and data (copy) a single click but still give users quick access to less frequently used behaviors. Do you use Reveal and/or Show in Large Type that often? I'll have to talk to the designer about options for making them all visible by default. There may be concerns abour readability, screen size on various devices, etc. Appreciate the insight though!
I agree. My related issue is slightly different but equally highly annoying. And I'm not sure 1Password staff fully realise how annoying it is in the UK with how some security info works.
In addition to username and password, most (or certainly many) UK banks have a 'security word', 'memorable word', or whatever they've decided to label it as, that needs to be remembered. But during the login pages, the bank will ask for 3 characters in separate boxes, sometimes to be typed, other times entered via a drop-menu of #-z to select from. eg:
digits needed from memorable world, example
drop-menu to select digits needed from memorable world, exampleAt the moment, we have the clunky way in 1P of having to "Show in Large Type" to see which character is under which digit. An improvement would be if that field could be set to 'show character digits' all the time, without having to open this silly large option from the menu.
memorable word clunky pop-up display, exampleIt doesn't have to auto-fill for us, but at least make it easier to see at a glance (on both macOS and iOS/iPadOS). Thanks! :-)
Yes, I don't need it auto filling that (but would be an interesting challenge for you devs), but something more intuitive for forms like this.
Can you explain your thought process behind making your app so hand holdy that it's no longer viable for pro users? Beyond just 1Password wants more money from the vast untapped potential market of the "general public". XD
There was the whole issue with new user orientation questions being asked everytime we logged in. Now I'm seeing 1Password try to auto fill email and auto generate password directly after creating a new login. These are regressions for people who know how to use your product. I use email aliases, guess I have to delete the email field before creating a new login every time now, I also use different length passwords w/ different parameters for different things, guess I have to delete that field so I can adjust the parameters and generate the new one I want.
You seem to think you're making the 1Password easier and easier to use. You're adding more and more friction for current and pro users. You're actually slowing down our workflows by "making it easier", it's not easier, it's the same level of difficulty, just different. You're just making it take longer for people who know what to do vs people who don't. You're just catering more to the people who won't recommend your app, won't actually use it beyond what's automated, and won't take the time to swap off chrome's password manager. Any chance you could stop or is it just full blown capitalism? At least add toggles for things that not everyone wants.
- 1P_MattG
This is a great question! Happy to answer.
When 1Password first started, our users were a lot like the people building the software. They were highly technical power users who felt comfortable exploring menus. If something wasn’t working, they were good at troubleshooting on their own before asking for help.
Our user base has grown substantially, which means our users look quite a bit different as well. We actually hear quite often that our product is “too technical” or that it doesn’t provide enough hand-holding.
The prompts you mentioned were a bug, not intentional behavior—so we clearly haven’t gotten it right yet. My personal philosophy is that we should build the default experience to “just work” and be really easy to set up, even for the least technical users. However, our power users (like me!) should have all the options and flexibility they need to disable features that don’t make sense for them or adjust settings when the defaults don’t fit their workflows.
It’s a fine balance, and we’re still working on getting it just right.
Is there any progress towards full bi-directional item links?
It's sooo annoying to have to remember to reverse link any item link I create. I originally expected this to be the default when the feature came out.
My main use-case for item links is if I attach a file (photo of driving license), I link it to my Driving License item, it's quite an obvious expectation that the driving license item would by default link back to the file containing the image of the license itself?
Everytime i've asked this previously, I just get told, yes we're looking in to it. Or we'll consider it etc, but it never gets around to the thing being done.
Does no one else want bi-directional item linking?
- 1P_MattG
I’ll give you a direct answer! The way items relate to each other is something I’m really passionate about fixing. Right now, we treat everything sort of like line items in a spreadsheet, but there’s so much context that accompanies every item that we're currently missing.
We’re actively exploring better ways to capture that context (hopefully automatically, so you don’t have to do extra work) and turn it into useful functionality that boosts both productivity and delight. Bi-directional linking is just one of many things that will help achieve this goal.
I don’t have a firm timeline, unfortunately, but this is something we’re actively working on.
I don't necessarily need automatic linking. Just a checkbox so that when I do create a link to another item, I can check a box next to the link that specifies whether I want this to create a link in the opposite direction. That would be more than sufficient for me!
Because the attachment may be needed by several items, hence linking to one source, rather than having several repeat copies of the same attachment item.
What is the design/thought process behind reverting to the old mobile search bar location?
I guess I'm a bit confused as to why it was changed to appease knee-jerk complaints from three years ago? The blog says this is to "make it easier to search quickly" (blatantly false) and to "align with other devices, creating a consistent experience."
I guess the clarification I'm looking for here is how 1Password are justifying this as a good design choice now with the market and modern design going the other direction. Look at any app with AI, Arc Browser, Arc Search, Raycast, iOS spotlight, etc.. Modern ui/ux design is moving to search being the main way to interact as it's faster and easier for everyone. Three years ago, with the release of 1Password 8, the search moving to an easily reachable tab was a great design/ux choice. The same can't be true of the regression now.
The search bar at top is a much smaller target to tap on and it's just harder to reach, especially with the oversized phones that seem to be getting larger each year. Also, now with there being a search bar on each tab, the experience gets only more confusing. For example, if I search for something in one tab, open it and navigate somewhere else, I need to remember what tab I had the search on. If I forget what tab I was on, it's possible to search and open the same item on a new tab. This is possible with all three tabs on mobile now, meaning if that happens, I can easily reach a state of the app where I'm trying to swap between 2 or more tabs and it looks as if nothing is happening and the app is broken.
That doesn't sound like it's "easier to search quickly" to me. Having a dedicated place and button that is always 1 reachable tap away sounds like a better experience to me. It seems to me as if 1Password has some ux/ui designers or managers with differing preferences now. That whoever is making these decisions now, maybe uses Android. Android seems to have missed the boat on making things reachable and accessible on a big screen, instead forcing the user to treat their phone as a tablet. Meanwhile modern design continues to move more towards the bottom tab bar being the focus and even beyond mobile, search is now being treated as a first class citizen everywhere other than 1Password. I had even mentioned how important the search tab was in some of your surveys, saying how all of the other tabs are mostly irrelevant and how search is the only thing I use, to no avail it appears. I've even asked friends and family that I've recommended 1Password to and they all primarily use the search tab as well.
I'd really appreciate hearing some thoughts behind all of this beyond just "we had complaints three years ago."
- 1P_MattG
That’s a good question as well! People are generally uncomfortable with change, so when we switched to the dedicated Search tab, we weren’t surprised that there were some strong feelings about it. We obviously made the change because we thought that, based on our research, user testing, design philosophy, etc., it would be a positive improvement.
We spent months (as you should) addressing feedback and issues reported from the 1Password 7 to 1Password 8 launch, and users generally loved the product. However, even almost two years after the launch, we still saw an overwhelming demand for restoring the previous search experience.
We always try to do the right thing for our users. I think that means it’s also really, really important for us to admit if we got something wrong—and then make it right. While feedback was a big factor in reverting to the universal search experience, we also spent a great deal of time improving the quality of the search algorithm as well. Many of these changes didn’t make sense with a dedicated Search tab, so we wanted to err on the side of discovery and findability.
Mobile also has limited screen real estate, which I am very conscious of. Now that we’ve removed one of the dedicated tabs, that leaves room for something new we’re working on. :)
Anyone interested in joining this AMA, check the Events page for the event.
- 1P_Blake
Thank you cyber-bacon! Your timing is too good! I just updated the post above with the event link as well! 🙂
Is this a live video etc, or just someone replying to comments?
I'm a bit confused by why this is "live"?
