There's been quite a lot of chat in the blogosphere about password marking (generically) since Jakob Nielsen published an alertbox against it: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/passwords.html
and then Bruce Schneier, who gave him some security advice, somewhat recanted: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/06/the_problem_wit_2.html I'm not yet seeing convincing evidence from user research that inclines me to one view or the other. Jakob's piece talks about mobile, in particular, and there are certainly major issues in trying to put an accurate password into a mobile device. To give just a few factors: inadequate keyboards, small screens, awkward contexts, possibility of being overlooked. What I'm not yet seeing is much consideration of what I call 'relationship' issues. In this area, those would include the reason why the user is creating/entering the password, the relative importance of this security compared to the value of what lies behind it, and so on. So coming back to your question: what sort of account is being created? Are users likely to be feeling especially sensitive for any reason about the personal information or whatever they will divulge to the account? Or especially casual? Are they likely to be shoulder-surfed? Or using a mobile? What do they expect to happen on a site of this nature? Broadly, the plain text echoing is likely to be reassuring for a mid-to-low importance site that is used in (mostly) private circumstances. If it's a high-security site or is likely to be used in public circumstances, then keep as much private (i.e. masked) as you can. And try to get some users' views on the matter, preferably by getting them to try a prototype. Best Caroline Jarrett "Forms that work: Designing web forms for usability" www.formsthatwork.com Effortmark Ltd Usability - Forms - Content Phone: 01525 370 379 Mobile: 0799 057 0647 International: +44 152 537 0379 16 Heath Road Leighton Buzzard Bedfordshire LU7 3AB UK ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
