Earlier this week I wrote a post about how I disagree with Jakob’s findings that unmasking the password field in a form will improve usability, and could even improve security. I strongly believe password fields should be masked, and one of my points was that I think there is a potential to lose customers at an even great scale because they feel the site is not secure. So here is this weeks poll.

Here is the poll: Do you think masking the password field in a form improves security?

Archive of Web Usability and Design Polls

 

I am a subscriber to Jakob Nielsen’s site, a popular web usability expert. Today he sent out an email with his findings that suggest we should stop using password masking on forms. I usually would agree with his findings, and many of the polls I run come to similar conclusions. In this particular case though, I think his case studies don’t reflect a real world experience, and missed an important point. Continue reading »