Password Usability

Poor password usability can ruin your web registration process. While passwords are a painful fact of life, there are ways to minimize the problems that users face. This article contains suggestions on how to best collect passwords during the registration process, and it will help you determine if you should allow users to save their passwords.

Ledwell, Joshua. WebWord (2001). Design>Web Design>Usability>Security

Security and Human Factors

A big lie of computer security is that security improves as password complexity increases. In reality, users simply write down difficult passwords, leaving the system vulnerable. Security is better increased by designing for how people actually behave.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2000). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Security

Stop Password Masking

Usability suffers when users type in passwords and the only feedback they get is a row of bullets. Typically, masking passwords doesn't even increase security, but it does cost you business due to login failures.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2009). Articles>Web Design>Security>Usability

パスワードを隠すのをやめよう

ユーザがパスワードを打ち込んでも、黒い点の列でしかフィードバックが返ってこないとき、ユーザビリティは損なわれている。パスワードを隠したからといって、セキュリティは強化されないことが多く、逆に、ログインの失敗によって、あなたのビジネスに悪影響を及ぼす。

Nielsen, Jakob. Usability.gr.jp (2009). (Japanese) Articles>Web Design>Security>Usability