Accessible authentication methods for persons with diverse cognitive abilities

The technological world offers a plethora of resources that could be potentially engaging for users with diverse cognitive abilities. However, access to these resources is often secured by authentication mechanisms that can pose accessibility barriers. To comprehend how these mechanisms could be better designed to enhance accessibility, we conducted a literature review and subsequently conducted a study, gathering empirical data through online questionnaires administered to 34 users with diverse cognitive abilities. Our investigation and analysis focused on their experiences with various authentication methods, aiming to identify the challenges they commonly encounter. This paper’s primary contribution lies in presenting evidence that many conventional authentication approaches lack accessibility. Additionally, we advocate for the adoption of biometric authentication systems as a promising direction, emerging as the most accessible solution based on our study results. Furthermore, drawing insights from existing works, we extracted and synthesized a set of guidelines that we believe IT experts should consider when developing an accessible authentication system. We validated these guidelines through our questionnaire, emphasizing which ones our user group deems most relevant.