Password Authentication for Older People: Problems, Behaviours and Strategies

Burak Merdenyan, Helen Petrie

2025

Abstract

Many aspects of life are now conducted online, and many services requiring a secure account, usually password protected. Creating and tracking many online accounts and passwords is difficult for everyone. For older people it may be particularly problematic but vitally important as online accounts now give access to many healthcare, financial and support services. This study used an online questionnaire to investigate the behaviours, problems, and strategies in relation creating and using password-protected online accounts with a sample of 75 older UK participants (aged 65 to 89) and compare them with a similar sample of young UK participants (aged 18 to 30). The results were surprising, with unexpected differences between the groups, but many similarities. For example, older participants had no difficulties creating passwords of the right length, whereas young participants had difficulties in that task. Older participants had many more complex strategies for creating and remembering passwords, while young participants relied more on re-using old passwords with small changes which then probably caused difficulties remembering them. These results suggest we need to rethink the approach to better supporting older people in password creation and use, taking a more universal design approach, supporting all users with a range of options.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Merdenyan B. and Petrie H. (2025). Password Authentication for Older People: Problems, Behaviours and Strategies. In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health - Volume 1: ICT4AWE; ISBN 978-989-758-743-6, SciTePress, pages 78-91. DOI: 10.5220/0013299800003938

in Bibtex Style

@conference{ict4awe25,
author={Burak Merdenyan and Helen Petrie},
title={Password Authentication for Older People: Problems, Behaviours and Strategies},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health - Volume 1: ICT4AWE},
year={2025},
pages={78-91},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0013299800003938},
isbn={978-989-758-743-6},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health - Volume 1: ICT4AWE
TI - Password Authentication for Older People: Problems, Behaviours and Strategies
SN - 978-989-758-743-6
AU - Merdenyan B.
AU - Petrie H.
PY - 2025
SP - 78
EP - 91
DO - 10.5220/0013299800003938
PB - SciTePress