From the early days of the web it has been default behavior for forms to "mask" passwords by displaying asterisks or something similar instead of the actual characters. The obvious point of this is to protect your password from the eyes of passers-by. Now famed usability expert Jakob Nielsen is calling into question the value of this practice and arguing that the usability impact of it is too great. Nielsen says forms should display passwords in clear text, at least usually and by default. Nielsen doesn't like Reset buttons either. There has been plenty of negative reaction to this call, generally hedged with respect to Nielsen's overall body of work: Jason Montgomery analyzed Nielsen in great detail , pointing out, for example, where he's merely changing the subject rather than making a valid criticism of password masking.... [read full story]
