[Usability] Confusion between Wi-Fi access point passwords and keyring passwords

[Jason Spiro <jasonspiro4+gmane gmail com>]

Hi all,

I was reading
http://www.disambiguity.com/dialogue-boxes-making-simple-things-simple/#comment-18749
-- a blog comment made by Shawn Medero on May 29th, 2007.  Shawn brings up an
excellent issue there.

"[...] GNOME implements a very similar concept called 'Keyring'. The dialogs can
be quite confusing there to. A common use case I’ve seen is:

"1. You try to connect to a wifi access point.
"2. You are prompted to enter a password for the [wifi] access point.
"3. GNOME prompts you to store the password in a keyring.
"3a. If this is the first time you are using your keyring you are asked to enter
a password to secure the keyring.

"I’ve watched folks retype the wifi access point password as their keyring
password *many* times. The dialogs aren’t visually different enough for most
folks because usually when you are connecting to a wifi access point you are in
hurry. (At a conference, meeting, wherever… trying to check your damn email to
download that file you need for the presentation in ten minutes)."

I don't use Wi-Fi in Linux, so I've never run into the issue that Shawn
reported.  Does the issue still exist now, in 2009?  What are some possible
solutions?

Cheers,
-Jason