Written by Eric Gockel
One way to differentiate your website or application is by paying attention to the little details many folks pass up.
Take passwords, for example. We all have them; most websites handle them the same way. You never think about it until you forget yours.
Usually, websites do a good job of letting you know their requirements when setting up a new password, so you’re spared the hassle of finding out afterward that your selected password has unsupported characters.
One thing that would be helpful, especially for those of us who employ our password patterns and manage to remember them, is that if your website doesn’t support special characters (why?!), then you should also mention that on the login page, not just on the page where I created it, or the password reset page.
This happens almost every time I try to log into a site like Crate and Barrel or Land of Nod that doesn’t support special characters and have to request my password … or at least remember that when I get to the change password page and see what their policy was.
Why not add “(7-18 characters, must contain both letters and numbers. No special characters.)” below the password field on the login page too?
What do you think?