Security designs that presume enacting secure behaviors to be beneficial in all circumstances discount the impact of response cost on users’ lives and assume that all data is equally worth protecting. However, this has the effect of reducing user autonomy by diminishing the role personal values and priorities play in the decision-making process. In this study, we demonstrate an alternative approach that emphasizes users’ comprehension over compliance, with the goal of helping users to make more informed decisions regarding their own security. To this end, we conducted a three-phase redesign of the warning notifications surrounding the authentication ceremony in Signal. Our results show how improved comprehension can be achieved while still promoting favorable privacy outcomes among users. Our experience reaffirms existing arguments that users should be empowered to make personal trade-offs between perceived risk and response cost. We also find that system trust is a major factor in users’ interpretation of system determinations of risk, and that properly communicating risk requires an understanding of user perceptions of the larger security ecosystem in whole.
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This content will become publicly available on September 7, 2024
Privacy and Security Perceptions in Augmented Cognition Applications
Perceptions of security and privacy influence users’ behavior with security mechanisms such as passwords and multifactor authentication. Users tend to practice insecure behaviors based on their perception of security and convenience. This paper highlights the alignment between privacy and security perceptions and the possibilities for augmented cognition in HCI and instructional de-sign to improve security-related behaviors for access control.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1662487
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10483610
- Editor(s):
- Schmorrow, D.D.; Fidopiastis, C.M.
- Publisher / Repository:
- Springer
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
- Volume:
- 14019
- ISSN:
- 1611-3349
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 429-440
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- ["security education, privacy, augmented cognition, access control"]
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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