TY - GEN
T1 - A comprehensive study of the usability of multiple graphical passwords
AU - Chowdhury, Soumyadeb
AU - Poet, Ron
AU - Mackenzie, Lewis
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - Recognition-based graphical authentication systems (RBGSs) using images as passwords have been proposed as one potential solution to the need for more usable authentication. The rapid increase in the technologies requiring user authentication has increased the number of passwords that users have to remember. But nearly all prior work with RBGSs has studied the usability of a single password. In this paper, we present the first published comparison of the usability of multiple graphical passwords with four different image types: Mikon, doodle, art and everyday objects (food, buildings, sports etc.). A longitudinal experiment was performed with 100 participants over a period of 8 weeks, to examine the usability performance of each of the image types. The results of the study demonstrate that object images are most usable in the sense of being more memorable and less time-consuming to employ, Mikon images are close behind but doodle and art images are significantly inferior. The results of our study complement cognitive literature on the picture superiority effect, visual search process and nameability of visually complex images.
AB - Recognition-based graphical authentication systems (RBGSs) using images as passwords have been proposed as one potential solution to the need for more usable authentication. The rapid increase in the technologies requiring user authentication has increased the number of passwords that users have to remember. But nearly all prior work with RBGSs has studied the usability of a single password. In this paper, we present the first published comparison of the usability of multiple graphical passwords with four different image types: Mikon, doodle, art and everyday objects (food, buildings, sports etc.). A longitudinal experiment was performed with 100 participants over a period of 8 weeks, to examine the usability performance of each of the image types. The results of the study demonstrate that object images are most usable in the sense of being more memorable and less time-consuming to employ, Mikon images are close behind but doodle and art images are significantly inferior. The results of our study complement cognitive literature on the picture superiority effect, visual search process and nameability of visually complex images.
KW - usability
KW - user authentication
KW - multiple image passwords
UR - http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-40477-1_26
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-642-40477-1_26
DO - 10.1007/978-3-642-40477-1_26
M3 - Conference publication
SN - 978-3-642-40476-4
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science
SP - 424
EP - 441
BT - Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 2013
A2 - Kotzé, Paula
A2 - Marsden, Gary
A2 - et al,
PB - Springer
T2 - 4th IFIP TC 13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
Y2 - 2 September 2013 through 6 September 2013
ER -