Unmask Password Fields on Web Forms

The past several months I have been reading about how unmasking password fields can help with usability on web forms. The article that really moved me was written by Jakob Nielsen called Stop Password Masking. I am not going to recap everything he said. You can read his article on your own time, however, I will point out some important things he mentioned. These will reinforce why we need to stop masking passwords.

Jakob Nielsen pointed out that:

"Users make more errors when they can’t see what they’re typing while filling in a form. … people are more likely to give up and never log in to your site at all, leading to lost business. Or, in the case of intranet’s, increased support calls."

So the question is, why do we still mask password fields?

• Early web default
• Easy to put into a form
• Security

I have read a lot of controversy about why we should not unmask password fields. The biggest controversy was security. Yes, I totally agree. Security is a very important issue. However, if you can’t see what you are typing, and there isn’t a second box to retype in the password, what are the chances that you will type the password without mistakes? The probability of error goes up 50% or more.

If you have a cell phone to browse the web, you probably have already found some web sites set up for mobile browsing allows you to view the password field by simply checking a box called "View Password" or some other similar label. This has been a huge lifesaver for me because usually I am in a hurry to get somewhere on the web if I am using my phone to access a secure site.

Since web forms are becoming easier to create and use for collecting information and setup of accounts, we need to make the experience of signing up as user friendly as possible. For passwords, we can do this by simply unmasking the single password field. If there are two fields for a password on the web form, and you have a great verification script, then the unmasking is not necessary because you have a way to catch the mistake of misspelling.