Usability
Authentication is a design problem and we keep giving the wrong answer to it.
Very few things on the internet have survived in their original form since its conception. Passwords are one of them.
Nobody likes passwords. We have learned to tolerate them as a ‘necessary inconvenience’ of the digital age and having to remember, type, forget or share our passwords with people is a price to pay for online security. But it shouldn’t necessarily be that way.
After nearly 30 years of existence in mainstream digital culture, research data and human experience demonstrate how badly passwords perform as a design solution. From a purely human usability perspective, passwords have become a frustrating, ineffective and unsophisticated method for accessing and protecting digital space. It’s time to free people from this burden. …
The very first time I interacted with a computer was through this screen:
As a 5-year-old, I learned how to use the command line by watching grown-ups and soon was able to open my favorite game, Hocus Pocus, by typing words that I couldn’t even read or understand.
MS-DOS was literally a black hole for usability. There is no way for you to know what’s inside your computer and what you can do with it. Command Line Interfaces (CLI) require users to have knowledge about the system and its language prior to interaction. But talking to a machine using abstract codes and commands soon reached its limits and the GUI revolution replaced this intimidating level of abstraction on a black screen with colorful icons, menus, lists and windows in order to make information accessible, understandable and usable. …
About
