I have been trying out a bunch of different products and I started to notice this pattern around how passwords are obtained. Apps had already made the assumption that I as a user know what their password expectations are when I create one.

There’s a lot of discussion in 2017 about how security systems have evolved to not force such requirements anymore, but that’s another topic altogether. Every app has its own requirements of what a password should comprise and a lot of this is decided by security architects, developers and engineers.

This is completely fine, but why assume the user already knows what your app’s password criteria is?

Here are some of the experiences I had with world renowned products.

Note: Most of the products I tried were on the mobile platform.

That’s fine.. But where did all my other fields go?

Here’s what happened when I filled out my email, password and then hit submit!

I wasn’t even prompted about the condition in the first screen and both the fields vanished, I had to do it all over again.

Hey Box, I get it. You want me to have a password that’s 6 characters long. Why would you make me type everything again, including the Email ID?

Notice how the password label reads ‘Create Password’. Instead, had the placeholder label been ‘Create Password, 6+ characters’, it’d have reduced a significant number of not matching the minimum criteria. There are quite a few apps where I’ve gone through a similar experience, but I was stumped to see an app like $Box do the same.

Forcing a user to type all their form fields after a refresh, all over again instantly makes the user perceive the process as a monotonous and tedious one and might lead to a % of users dropping off the page. And in this (Box) case, for no fault of theirs (since it wasn’t communicated earlier).

When the user puts in their time and effort to fill these fields out, clearing all of them just leaves the user in a disappointed state and might lead to a frustration, disappointment and eventually a reduction in the form/call-to-action being completed.