Usability of Passwordless Authentication in Wi-Fi Networks: A Comparative Study of Passkeys and Passwords in Captive Portals

TL;DR

This study compares the usability of passkeys and passwords in Wi-Fi captive portals, finding passkeys generally easier to configure and perceived as more usable, but with platform-specific challenges affecting user experience.

Contribution

It provides the first empirical comparison of passkeys and passwords in captive portals, highlighting usability issues and offering design recommendations.

Findings

Passkeys are perceived as more usable than passwords.

Platform-specific usability challenges exist for passkeys.

Captive portal limitations negatively impact user experience.

Abstract

Passkeys have recently emerged as a passwordless authentication mechanism, yet their usability in captive portals remains unexplored. This paper presents an empirical, comparative usability study of passkeys and passwords in a Wi-Fi hotspot using a captive portal. We conducted a controlled laboratory experiment with 50 participants following a split-plot design across Android and Windows platforms, using a router implementing the FIDO2CAP protocol. Our results show a tendency for passkeys to be perceived as more usable than passwords during login, although differences are not statistically significant. Independent of the authentication method, captive portal limitations negatively affected user experience and increased error rates. We further found that passkeys are generally easy to configure on both platforms, but platform-specific issues introduce notable usability challenges. Based on quantitative and qualitative findings, we derive design recommendations to improve captive portal authentication, including the introduction of usernameless authentication flows, improved captive portal detection mechanisms, and user interface design changes.