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Improving end-users’ awareness of cybersecurity warnings (e.g., phishing and malware alerts) remains a longstanding problem in usable security. Prior work suggests two key weaknesses with existing warnings: they are primarily communicated via saturated communication channels (e.g., visual, auditory, and vibrotactile); and, they are communicated rationally, not viscerally. We hypothesized that wrist-based affective haptics should address both of these weaknesses in a form-factor that is practically deployable: i.e., as a replaceable wristband compatible with modern smartwatches like the Apple Watch. To that end, we designed and implemented Spidey Sense, a wristband that produces customizable squeezing sensations to alert users to urgent cybersecurity warnings. To evaluate Spidey Sense, we applied a three-phased ‘Gen-Rank-Verify’ study methodology with 48 participants. We found evidence that, relative to vibrotactile alerts, Spidey Sense was considered more appropriate for the task of alerting people to cybersecurity warnings. 

Abstract Despite striking global change, management to ensure healthy landscapes and sustained natural resources has tended to set objectives on the basis of the historical range of variability in stationary ecosystems. Many social–ecological systems are moving into novel conditions that can result in ecological transformation. We present four foundations to enable a transition to future-oriented conservation and management that increases capacity to manage change. The foundations are to identify plausible social–ecological trajectories, to apply upstream and deliberate engagement and decision-making with stakeholders, to formulate management pathways to desired futures, and to consider a portfolio approach to manage risk and account for multiple preferences across space and time. We use the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska as a case study to illustrate how the four foundations address common land management challenges for navigating transformation and deciding when, where, and how to resist, accept, or direct social–ecological change.