CAPTCHAs · Reviewed

Captchas are so hard that users fail them repeatedly

Raised by 280 people over 20 years (2007–2026), in 20 of them.

What people report

2007-07
I leave the site if I have to try more than twice.
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2017-07
On one login form I may have to sit through the captcha multiple times if Im guessing a password
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2020-11
The UX of hcaptcha is not good, especially in a flow where I'm already fixed on goal
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2023-12
the captchas themselves are broken half the time
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2026-10
DC ips are the worst for web browsing. You think captcha is annoying now, just wait until you try exiting through one of those.
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Principle

Help users recognize, diagnose, recover from errors

People report failing CAPTCHAs over and over, getting stuck in loops where a solved challenge reloads into another, or failing until they resize the browser, all with no explanation of what went wrong or how to get through, so some give up on signing in or reaching the page.

A fix

Tell people when a failure was caused by their answer and when it was caused by a background signal such as their device, browser or network, and after two failed attempts offer a different route such as an email or SMS code instead of another puzzle. Make sure solving a challenge actually lets people through, and test the challenge with screen readers and with low-vision and motor-impaired users so there is always an accessible option that does not depend on reading distorted images or audio.

Grouping, principle and fix drafted with Claude and reviewed by Justusability. Counts are people whose comment Claude labelled a usability complaint about this issue; see Method for how, and its limits. Something wrong here?

All 295 source comments