Authentication for young students

I’m interested in thoughts on how to provide accessible authentication for young students. A common pattern is to offer children a variety of pictures/icons during account setup and let them choose one. Then that image acts like a password – they choose their name from the class list, and then choose their selected icon from an array of icons. The goal is to reduce the chance of a child logging into someone else’s account, on purpose or by accident. Browser tools to save a password won’t work because students might sit at a different computer every day, and anyway that would defeat the purpose of preventing another student in the class from logging in to the wrong account.

Understanding SC 3.3.8<https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/accessible-authentication-minimum.html> says :

“If the test is based on something the website has set such as remembering or transcribing a word, or recognizing a picture the website provided, that would be a cognitive functional test. Recognizing objects, or a picture the user has provided is a cognitive function test; however, it is excepted at the AA level.”

It isn’t practical in a classroom to have each student “provide” their own image by uploading. The text seems to say that using website-provided pictures is not conformant with the requirement even if the student has picked the one they want to use.

Any thoughts on how this process could be adjusted to meet the requirement? Or do people think it is close enough to fit the exception?

-Madeleine

Madeleine Rothberg
Senior Subject Matter Expert
617-300-2492