An Experimental Study to Understand How Users Choose Password

Abstract

End-users share various personal information with different types of websites such as governmental, social networking, or educational websites. Websites vary in importance to the user and sensitivity of the information they involved about users. The password is the access key to the user account on websites and the first defense against unauthorized access. Previous studies mostly focused on the strength and weaknesses of passwords. This paper focuses on the passwords and the password’s relevance to the website’s sensitivity based on the type of information shared on them. A survey and think-aloud experiment, and post-interview are conducted in our laboratory. The participants were asked to create passwords to register on three different websites while thinking aloud so experimenters can prove and reject some hypotheses. The study’s results confirm that the importance of a website affects users’ behaviors and passwords.