Finding Secret Treasure? Improving Memorized Secrets Through Gamification
Katrin Hartwig, Atlas Englisch, Jan Pelle Thomson, Christian Reuter · 2021
Users tend to bypass systems that are designed to increase their personal security and privacy while limiting their perceived freedom. Nudges present a possible solution to this problem, offering security benefits without taking away perceived freedom. We have identified a lack of research comparing concrete implementations of nudging concepts in an emulated real-world scenario to assess their relative value as a nudge. Comparing multiple nudging implementations in an emulated real-world scenario including a novel avatar nudge with gamification elements, this publication discusses the advantages of nudging for stronger user-created passwords regarding efficacy, usability, and memorability. We investigated the effect of gamification in nudges, performing two studies (N1 = 16, N2 = 1, 000) to refine and evaluate implementations of current and novel nudging concepts. Our research found a gamified nudge, which integrates a personalizable avatar guide into the registration process, to perform less effectively than state-of-the-art nudges, independently of participants’ gaming frequency.