The battle between E-MAIL & ACCOUNT ID & USER NAME

What’s the difference? Are they the same? How do I know which to use when?

As my mom signs up for Echo apps, she is constantly getting tangled in the web of when to  an email and when to use (any numerous) account ids.Sorry mom there is no simple answer.

E-MAIL – for this blog post we are going to assume an email belongs to only one person.

• E-mail addresses are unique – like a phone number  or physical address there is only one destination per address.
• E-mail address are NOT case sensitive (PASSWORDS are CASE sensitive.)
• E-mails always have 3 parts; username, domain (followed by an actual dot) and the extension. There are more rules to what can be included in a e-mail address and what the computer will not except. Usually your e-mail host provider will send you an email back to your inbox if your e-mail could not be delivered due to technological error. example using a bad character in your email address like a space.
• Some e-mails are anonymous. The person who created the email did not have to prove they were JOHN smith to use the email address johnsmith@domain.com. Nor did they have to prove they were ablueclown@surprise.com.
• You could have lots of e-mail addresses and use only one e-mail program to read all your new e-mails.
• There is no magic look up find all email addresses’ belonging to the same person. Even if the personalization (front part of the @ symbol) is the exact same. In the same manner, there is no validation or look up to connect or join email with mobile numbers.

ACCOUNT/USER + ID/NAME (or any combination)

• An Account ID, is an unique id for a webpage, business, app. You may use the same account/user name across multiple applications or logins. But each business probably doesn’t know that. As companies merged rules around how a customer can access their digital information gets tricky for the customer experience and development teams.
• Or account id, may or may not be tied to an email. Usually when creating a new account with a new business, they will ask for contact details, address, email, phone – they would prefer someway to contact you if need be.
• If your account id is your email address – they will usually note it on the login screen.
• Every website/company creates their own rules for what makes an valid account id. Some allow spaces, some allow numbers. It is all how the site was programmed and there are no set standards for how this should be developed.
• Usually account ids are not case sensitive. Off-hand I can’t think of one site that uses a case sensitive account id.
• Some businesses will only let you sign up one account to one email. The account id is how you login into their site and the email is how they will contact you.
• When you change email addresses, your accounts will need to be updated. Now this is a tricky bit. If a business uses an email account as the login name, if the email address changes, can the individual update their personal details or is the original email locked-in?

When a developer is creating a new system that requires the user to maintain personal and contact details on file, there are multiple facets to consider. Does it require a password? Will it require the user to have an email or phone number to contact them in the future and for what reasonsCan we collect permissions from the user via Terms and Conditions to use cookies and contacts to gather detailed user information?

I’ve come across many website that validate you are you, by sending a text with a code to your phone, to be entered onto the website This provides a double validation/security point for you the user, and provides both your email and phone contact information back to the business.

Think of your EMAIL ADDRESS as physical delivery address for just you for all your incoming e-mails.

Think of you ACCOUNT ID as your unique nickname used by a business.

Not all big companies have it together. I use AT&T in my house; this includes mobile phone, cable, internet and home security. But I have 3 separate accounts with AT&T today. One email address, one physical address, one phone number and 3 account numbers and 3 user names. I have to log into each account site separately to see any billings, account statements, etc. Even with my knowledge of logins and how they work across large systems, I still had no idea what was going on with my accounts, when one was saying ‘everything is fine’ online and the TV keep splashing a ‘time to pay your bill message’. I (thought) I had set up the auto pay (I noticed during the set up conversations that the security system is separated from all the mobile and cable logins) for 2 accounts. But much to my dismay the cable/tv can not be combined with the mobile account, and I have 2 logins for the website to manage 2 accounts both in my name.

NOTE: AT&T and Comcast both assign you an e-mail address within their own domain. example: yourname@att.com. I’m not sure why they do this, it made it complicated on my end, one more e-mail address to manage. And it appears that now that I’m no longer a Comcast customer, I can not access that e-mail account.

ALSO NOTE: The set up of certain apps on Echo has proved to be difficult. Both my mom and myself are using iPad and iPhone with the Amazon Echo (which is integrated with google). So the conversation of email and ids has been a struggle during setup. There are no standards with in the digital world for the user to understand. Only standards for the developers to keep in mind due to back end processes.