A Cross-cultural Perspective for Personalizing Picture Passwords

Picture passwords, which require users to draw selections on images as their secret password, typically provide globalized solutions without taking into consideration that people across diverse cultures exhibit differences within interactive systems. Aiming to shed light on the effects of culture towards users' interactions within picture password schemes, we conducted a between-subjects cross-cultural (Eastern vs. Western) study (n=67). Users created a password on a picture illustrating content highly related to their daily-life experiences (culture-internal) vs. a picture illustrating the same daily-life experiences, but in a different cultural context (culture-external). Results revealed that people across cultures exhibited differences in visual processing, comprehension, and exploration of the picture content prior to making their password selections. The observed differences can be accounted by considering sociocultural theories highlighting the holistic preference of Eastern populations compared to the analytic preference of Western populations. Qualitative data also triangulate the findings by exposing the likeability and users' engagement towards the picture content familiar to individual's culture. Findings underpin the necessity to consider cultural differences in the design of personalized picture passwords.