This piece explores why users perceive secure authentication as friction rather than protection. Three key insights stood out: 1. loss aversion drives users to avoid perceived effort 2. mental models of “security” lag behind actual threat models 3. familiarity bias favors weak but habitual patterns

Empirically, usability testing shows rejection rates rise sharply when authentication adds more than two new steps.

I’d love to hear from others—what design trade-offs have you found most effective in aligning user convenience with real security gains?

   !usable -> !secure