  Passwords are a good idea, in theory. They have the potential to act as a
fairly strong gateway. In practice though, passwords are plagued with problems.
They are (1) easily shared, (2) trivial to observe and (3) maddeningly elusive
when forgotten. While alternatives to passwords have been proposed, none, as
yet, have been adopted widely. There seems to be a reluctance to switch from
tried and tested passwords to novel alternatives, even if the most glaring
flaws of passwords can be mitigated. One argument is that there is not enough
investigation into the feasibility of many password alternatives. Graphical
authentication mechanisms are a case in point. Therefore, in this paper, we
detail the design of two prototype applications that utilise graphical
authentication mechanisms. However, when forced to consider the design of such
prototypes, we find that pertinent password problems eg. observation of entry,
are just that: password problems. We conclude that effective, alternative
authentication mechanisms should target authentication scenarios rather than
the well-known problems of passwords. This is the only route to wide-spread
adoption of alternatives.
