Visual Metaphor Gone Wrong

UC uses wrong design for cyber security campaign.

The University of Canterbury is making an effort to increase awareness for the need of strong passwords. For this purpose they ran the “Longer Is Stronger” campaign, including a poster that is still being shown on displays across the campus.

The problem is that the visual metaphor of a chain is completely wrong. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link and with an increasing length of the chain the likelihood of a particularly week link increases. A longer chain is weaker than a short one. I really hope that our IT security experts are smarter than our visual designers.

A password is indeed usually stronger the longer it is. Encouraging students and staff to use long passwords is a step in the right direction. It would be even better if UC would offer password managers, such as 1Password or LastPass to all its members. That way our passwords could not only be long, but we would be able to conveniently access them. But putting money where you mouth is, is a skill that UC still needs to practice. Purchases of password managers are still being processed on an individual basis and it can take months to complete a purchase.

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