Reducing the Chore of Password Entry - 10 solutions

The most annoying thing for computer users (even over General Protection Faults, core dumpings and "Cannot Connect to www.nakedscelebs.com/spicegirls/lezshot.html") is surely the chore of having to enter a password. Every time the user wants to use the system they have to type in the same old thing. And on some systems, they even make you change it frequently, which can be doubly painful as you only have so many ex-girl/boyfriends. I consequently propose the following changes to password entry interfaces to make them more user friendly.

  1. A check box, which when clicked means that the password is assumed to be the same as the user's login name.
  2. A pull-down for the password file which contains: the names of all previous and current partners, including nick-names; names of pets; registration numbers of current and favourite past cars; telephone numbers and dates of births of partners and close family members; words related to the hobbies of the user; names of favoured pop/film/TV stars, models, authors, fictional characters, and pop groups; name, date of birth, telephone and cash-card pin number of the user; the words 'abc123' and 'qwerty'.
  3. An optional second pull-down list of rude words.
  4. A spell checker option. This can be matched against words in the dictionary or the list of likely passwords (See 2 and 3).
  5. A dictionary-match option: when the user enters part of a word, if a word exists on the dictionary that begins with what has been typed in so far, this is substituted for the partial word.
  6. If the word entered is 'reasonably-close' to the actual password this is acceptable. Up to two of the following mistakes are allowed: letter in wrong case; up to two missing or extra characters; incorrect characters that appear on the keyboard up to two keys away from correct character.
  7. A pull-down containing ALL the passwords on the user/password file, so the user just has to select his or her own from the list.
  8. Option to retrieve the user's password from the password file and insert it into the password entry field as the default.
  9. If the same wrong password is typed in three times, the system lets the user in and changes his password to the one the user was trying to use.
  10. The "Of course it's me?" checkbox: No password entry required.