Human Generated Passwords - the Impacts of Password Requirements and Presentation Styles

Published

August 2, 2015

Author(s)

Paul Y. Lee, Yee-Yin Choong

Abstract

The generation stage of the user password management lifecycle is arguably the most important yet perilous step. Fulfilling minimum length and character type requirements while attempting to create something memorable can become an arduous task, leaving the users frustrated and confused. Our study focuses on two areas - password requirements and formatting, and examines the differences in user performance to understand the human password generation space. The results show a clear drop in performance when users generate passwords following a complex rule set as opposed to a simple rule set, with fewer passwords, more errors, and longer times for rule comprehension and password generation. Formatted rule presentation shows promising results that may facilitate user password generation. Findings from this study will contribute to a better understanding of the user password generation stage and shed light on future development of password policies balancing security and usability.

Proceedings Title

Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCII2015)

Conference Dates

August 2-7, 2015

Conference Location

Los Angeles, CA, US

Pub Type

Conferences

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Keywords

password generation, cyber security, password policy, usability

Citation

Lee, P. and Choong, Y. (2015), Human Generated Passwords - the Impacts of Password Requirements and Presentation Styles, Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCII2015), Los Angeles, CA, US, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=917941 (Accessed May 17, 2026)

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