Cognitive Engineering

In this episode, Fraser McGruer, Nick Hare, Chris Wragg and Peter Coghill explore one of modern life’s most persistent irritations: being asked to create yet another username and password.The conversation starts with a familiar frustration—setting up endless accounts for everyday tasks, from charging an electric car to buying a coffee—and quickly broadens into a deeper discussion about identity, convenience, data and the trade-offs built into digital life.Why do so many companies want us to log in all the time? Is it really about making life easier, or is it about harvesting data? The team examines the competing incentives at work: users want speed and low friction, while businesses want persistent identity, customer lock-in and as much information as possible.Along the way, they distinguish between situations where accounts are genuinely useful and those where they feel completely unnecessary. They also explore how the digital world has transformed ordinary interactions that once depended on human recognitio