

Stop Password Masking - tonyblundell
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/stop-password-masking/

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dottrap
Many people work in office settings with co-workers sometimes looking at their
screen (Pair programming, getting help.) Masking passwords by default is a
good thing.

Also, don't forget sight-impaired accessibility features. OS features like
VoiceOver on Mac will read what you type, unless you are on a masked text
field in which case the OS knows not to say each character you type for the
whole office to hear.

A user option to toggle the visibility is welcome. Many of the Mac password
panels today have a checkbox under the field for "Show Password."

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feralmoan
type="password" inputs are not explicitly saved to browser form history, which
is the biggest functional differentiator.

~~~
dalke
Does the same thing happen (in modern browsers) with autocomplete="off"? I
assume that's why I don't get autocomplete/history for my bank's login page,
despite that it's in cleartext.

~~~
feralmoan
Yeah that's generally how its done, but also doesn't give users the choice to
use their browsers password manager or keychain. The autocomplete feature was
more geared towards sensitive data that should never be re-surfaced in an
automated way, such as credit card info, that sort of thing.

~~~
dalke
Right! I forgot about the browser's password manager.

