Jakob Nielsen on Password masking
I just read Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox on Password Masking. At the first half of the article I couldn’t believe what I was reading as Nielsen just suggests to unmask all Password-Textfields. But in the second half he suggests to add a checkbox, so that the user can decide wether to unmask the password or not. In my opinion a very good and simple thing to do, which Apple is doing for years by the way, but I also think that most people will get a little confused, especially not so tech-savyy people when they see that the password is unmasked by default.
Anyway, from now on I will add such a little checkbox to all my loginforms (right next to the “Remember me” checkbox).
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Comment by cedric:check ich nicht
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Comment by admin:Das liegt daran, dass du total oversnapped bist, Cedric Dion.
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Comment by hanford:I think an option for unmasking is great; especially when setting a new password, since the consiquences of a mistake are more drastic.
But I was suprised to see JN, the original old curmudgeon of Usability say this:
“More importantly, there’s usually nobody looking over your shoulder when you log in to a website. It’s just you, sitting all alone in your office, suffering reduced usability to protect against a non-issue. ”
Without any understanding of *who he’s talking about*. Did he do any research on this comment? Where does he get this generalization from?
If he was truly talking about Me (or people like me), he’d know:
1. In the office I use “save password” options, so I rarely type passwords there.
2. On my laptop,since it’s much more easily stolen, I don’t save passwords.
3. I use my laptop a lot when I’m out and about; when people COULD be looking over my shoulder.
I just think his statement comes off as assuming way too much about the user without data to back it up, which is a usability no-no.
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Comment by admin:Hey, youre absolutely right. That is exactly what I was thinking when reading that article. I also didn’t get the part where Nielsen said that masking is insecure anyway, because people can look at your fingers to see what you’re typing. Did he try this for once, especially when he’s standing behind somebody? If you’re in an internet cafe or some busy place, I think you have a pretty good chance of hiding what you’re typing. Works at least at an ATM pretty well..