Evaluating the effect of multi-touch behaviours on Android unlock patterns

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to evaluate the effect of multi-touch behaviours on creating Android unlock patterns (AUPs) by realising that users can perform more actions in touch-enabled mobile phones. Design/methodology/approach The author conducted two user studies with a total of 45 participates and performed two major experiments in the main user study. Findings The user study indicates that the multi-touch behaviours can have a positive impact on creating patterns; however, there are only nine touchable points for the original AUPs, which may reduce the usability when performing a multi-touch movement. Research limitations/implications An even larger user study could be conducted to further analyse the patterns generated by users, that is, to analyse the specific password space by integrating the behaviours of multi-touch and to involve more types of multi-touch behaviours in creating an AUP. Practical implications This work explores the effect of multi-touch movement on creating AUPs. The results should be of interest for software developers and security researchers for exploring the effect of multi-touch behaviours on the creation of graphical passwords on mobile phones. Originality/value The author conducts two user studies with a total of 45 participants to investigate the impact of multi-touch behaviours on creating AUPs. In addition, to address the issue of usability, the author proposes two ways: increasing the number of touchable points and improve the rules of pattern creation.