It seems like we created a culture of extreme laziness concerning passwords. All major web sites track you so well and conveniently that beyond the initial sign-up, you never have to type a password. We also made it easy to ask for a password reset through some email confirmation of some kind, so even in the rare occasion we ought to remember our passwords, we don’t.
The Apple ID, typically associated with an iTunes or iCloud account, is currently experiencing the effects of this culture of laziness, as Apple is flooded by password reset requests after people want to migrate their iPhone data (tied to their iCloud account and password) to the new iPhone 5.
What’s so sad about this situation is that, for those experiencing the issue, they couldn’t even bother re-using the same single password everywhere, including for their Apple ID, and remembering only that. I simply can’t believe humans can have such poor memory. Yet, usability-wise, there is a category of users that “brute-force” their way through functionality of software by treating its interface as challenges against its use rather than something to be learned. As we dumbed down interfaces to that particular group, their intellectual laziness was rewarded, including for simple memorization.
Eventually, we have to stand up against intellectually lazy users when it is clearly detrimental to them. Security is one of those moments when pure convenience has to be second. If a bank asks you for a secure password, you do not mess around with password resets. When, with an Apple ID, you can remotely wipe out all of your Apple devices, they had to take their stand and say that if you can’t remember your password and didn’t register a credit card to the account and can’t answer your own security questions, then you’re simply not serious enough about your security to warrant your account recovery. Bite the bullet, learn your lesson, and be smarter next time.
Am I the only one that think that we should bring a bit of punishment back into software design? Or should we endlessly praise the user’s ineptitude until their mistakes become too costly? Your hard drive crashed and you had no backup? Tough. No anti-virus and some weird software is creating havoc in your old, underpowered, cheap laptop? Tough. Can’t remember your password and recover your account? Tough. Some people need some bad experiences to learn from their mistakes, and it may be a good idea to punish some lazy users earlier than too late.
Published on September 24, 2012 at 21:17 EDT
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