William Sizer

Abstract • Two/Multi-Factor Authentication (2FA/MFA) is becoming increasingly popular in academic institutions. • Prior Research examining how Students perceive 2FA has recommended it to be made mandatory, motivated by the fact that Students find it to be easy to use. Despite this, 2FA adoption remains low and the cause of its’ particularly high error rate lacks definitive answers. • This study interviews students who have found 2FA to be particularly frustrating to further understand how students are impacted by added measures and imagine futures where these limiting factors are removed. • Like other work, this study finds that 2FA adds time to the login process, disrupts the user’s main goal and incites fears over loss of access. • By eliciting detailed user experiences, this study finds that experiences that were detrimental to the usability and acceptability of 2FA were largely avoidable with greater user awareness (e.g. student picked unsuitable 2FA method and were not aware of alternatives). These findings highlight the need for greater communication regarding organisational security and how non-traditional channels may be the key to this.