Swipe to log on (if only it were that simple)
by jb
It has come to my attention that the Windows Vista log on screen epitomises my approach to the difficult issues raised by work. Now, bear with me – this is not quite as nonsensical as it definitely initially seems.
The laptop I use almost everyday (for various tasks such as “checking” my email and “looking at” Twitter) is equipped with an integrated fingerprint scanner. This affords an alternative means of authentication (i.e. not multi-factor; if a valid fingerprint is read, the password entry step is bypassed). Thus, after the laptop boots, Windows Vista presents me with the choice to enter a password or swipe my fingerprint to log on. This seems simple enough. Indeed, the time taken for the human to authenticate is probably a small fraction of the total boot/startup duration, given the unwieldy nature of the world’s most popular operating system.
Yet, like most wildly mundane moments in life, scratch its surface and one will discover a marginally bloggable, “teachable moment”. In fact, the choice involves some cost benefit analysis. On the one hand, the fingerprint scanner constitutes an easy option. I need merely “swipe” one finger over the sensor. The password entry, on the other hand, requires me to fully operate the keyboard. Perhaps I can only motivate myself to use the scanner. However, therein also lies a pitfall… Or maybe: there, also lies, however, a pitfall in… Or: also, however, a pitfall in there lies. Can pitfalls lie?
Anyhow, the point is this: look before you leap… or swipe. Whether it is due to my deficient fingerprint scanning technique, down to an inadequately implemented scanner, or as a result of poor user instructions, it is usually only on the third or fourth attempted finger scan that authentication is successful. I must repeatedly wait, and try again, perhaps adjusting the speed with which I pass my print over the sensor, or changing the orientation of my finger. Compare that to password authentication. Keyboard entry is relatively precise; I rarely make an error entering my password.
In short, whilst I almost always opt to authenticate by scanning my finger print, because it is immediately less bothersome, the upshot is almost always a longer authentication process, over what would have been involved in opting directly for password entry. The teachable moment in this? Nothing that is not obvious. Just that the option to procrastinate is usually more labour intensive. Nevertheless, that option seems, a priori (given that every time I approach the log on procedure, I do not draw on knowledge from experience to make the decision), more appealing to my brain than the sure-fire password entry option.
And another thing: no offence productivity gurus, but the pinnacle of irony that is writing a self-centred blog post about procrastination has not escaped me.
