Trigger-action programming (TAP) is a programming model enabling users to connect services and devices by writing if-then rules. As such systems are deployed in increasingly complex scenarios, users must be able to identify programming bugs and reason about how to fix them. We first systematize the temporal paradigms through which TAP systems could express rules. We then identify ten classes of TAP programming bugs related to control flow, timing, and inaccurate user expectations. We report on a 153-participant online study where participants were assigned to a temporal paradigm and shown a series of pre-written TAP rules. Half of the rules exhibited bugs from our ten bug classes. For most of the bug classes, we found that the presence of a bug made it harder for participants to correctly predict the behavior of the rule. Our findings suggest directions for better supporting end-user programmers.
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Towards Usable Security Analysis Tools for Trigger-Action Programming
Research has shown that trigger-action programming (TAP)
is an intuitive way to automate smart home IoT devices, but
can also lead to undesirable behaviors. For instance, if two
TAP rules have the same trigger condition, but one locks
a door while the other unlocks it, the user may believe the
door is locked when it is not. Researchers have developed
tools to identify buggy or undesirable TAP programs, but little
work investigates the usability of the different user-interaction
approaches implemented by the various tools.
This paper describes an exploratory study of the usability
and utility of techniques proposed by TAP security analysis
tools. We surveyed 447 Prolific users to evaluate their ability
to write declarative policies, identify undesirable patterns in
TAP rules (anti-patterns), and correct TAP program errors, as
well as to understand whether proposed tools align with users’
needs. We find considerable variation in participants’ success
rates writing policies and identifying anti-patterns. For some
scenarios over 90% of participants wrote an appropriate policy,
while for others nobody was successful. We also find that
participants did not necessarily perceive the TAP anti-patterns
flagged by tools as undesirable. Our work provides insight into
real smart-home users’ goals, highlights the importance of
more rigorous evaluation of users’ needs and usability issues
when designing TAP security tools, and provides guidance to
future tool development and TAP research.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2114148
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10466592
- Publisher / Repository:
- USENIX Association
- Date Published:
- ISBN:
- 978-1-939133-36-6
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Anaheim CA
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- The DOI is not currently available.
