It’s about time CAPTCHAS become accessible

While CAPTCHAS might be necessary for security purposes, they have a negative impact on usability.

Yesterday I eagerly hopped onto a Discord call with a friend of mine. She recently purchased her first gaming computer, and we were excited to play some games together. Straight away, I told her to make an account with Steam — a digital platform where users can find and download video games. In order to create a Steam account, you only need to enter an email, password, username, and country of residence.

So… why did it take her 10 frustrating minutes to make a simple account?

Oh, right…it’s because she’s a robot.

Well, at least Steam seems to believe she’s a robot. In order to make an account with Steam you must complete a simple CAPTCHA. You know, the box you check that says “I’m not a robot”? Sometimes a short test will come up. Maybe you need to type in the letters shown in an image or select images of certain objects. Seems simple enough, right? Not exactly.

CAPTCHAS are a great way to prevent fake accounts and spam. Different platforms use them for all kinds of reasons. For example, a platform that sells concert tickets might use a CAPTCHA to prevent robots from buying bulk tickets that they can then scalp for twice the price. CAPTCHAS can also prevent account hijackings from attackers that try to hack accounts by repeatedly trying to log in using hundreds of different passwords.

There is no doubt that there are plenty of good reasons to use a protective CAPTCHA. Unfortunately, there are plenty of CAPTCHAS also stumping customers and consumers. Annoying, difficult, or unintuitive CAPTCHAS can greatly tarnish the user experience. In some cases, people may get so frustrated or spend so long trying to prove that they aren’t made of metal that they give up on the program entirely. This is something I experienced firsthand just yesterday.

As my friend was making her account, I heard her make a frustrated groan.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.