Despite the rate at which technology has grown in the past decade, the issue of security still largely remains a menace. It even demands greater consideration on digital products, as a security breach in this instance could adversely affect brand loyalty.
The process of creating a password starts from registering an account, and the role of a UX Designer in infusing usability at each step of this process cannot be undermined.

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While trying to change the password to my Spectranet account weeks ago, the experience I had wasn’t very user-friendly. The is the screen to change password.

Spectranet Change Password Screen
While it is okay to forgive the alignment and information architecture issues, what happened on the next screen should have been avoided.
After entering a password as required, I was then presented with a list of red warnings.

Spectranet Change Password Screen Warnings
The idea behind this is to help users create a strong password, but the interface is not being usable, making us trade security for usability. One would admit that having these requirements from the start will help users in making more informed decisions about password creation.
I cannot re-iterate enough the benefit of treating digital products like physical ones. The analogy of this online experience is what happens when I visit a bank, and I couldn’t enter through the security door at first trial, until a security agent comes to inform me of raising my phones up, removing my belt, removing my wristwatches e.t.c and on multiple trials, I finally get in. What this creates in the offline experience is a long queue of frustrated customers, while some persist, some just leave in anger (especially when they have options). The beauty of online is: there isn’t really a queue in the delay sense, but people can still leave if they have options.

Password Masking
Another thing I noticed was the inability to view your password on mobile.

Masking passwords doesn’t even increase security, so we should not also be losing on it in terms of usability. The major reason why a lot of websites and apps mask password is the claim that someone might be looking at you while typing. But here is the thing, if someone is close enough to look at your phone while you type your passwords, then they are close enough to watch your keyboards. Besides, most security problems we have faced were not because of people spying over shoulders, hackers don’t do that. So why do we subject ourselves to a reduced usability over a non-issue that we think exists.
Typos occur greatly on mobile phones even for things that we see, how much more for things that are masked? And since we have a smaller screen real estate on mobile than on tablets or PC’s, users will be more comfortable coming up with smaller-length character passwords on mobiles, which again affects password security.

Written by [url]Oluwatobi Mayowa[/url]
Read More:
https://uxplanet.org/blurring-the-lines-between-usability-and-security-spectranet-case-d0ebcad6f3fd