Evaluating the Effects of Security Usability Improvements in Word 2007 |
It has been argued in the literature that integrating security features with user goals and increasing their visibility would improve the usability of these functionalities. This paper investigates how these approaches affect the efficiency of use and subjective user satisfaction. The impacts of the combination of these two methods are evaluated as well. In order to do this the user interface of Word 2007 is modified according to these principles and usability tests are carried out with both the original and the modified user interfaces. The results suggest that integrating security features with user goals would improve the efficiency of using them but the impacts on user satisfaction cannot be clearly identified based on the collected data. No indications of any major improvements in the efficiency of use or user satisfaction are found when the visibility of security features is increased. The combination of these two methods seems to improve both the efficiency of use and the subjective user satisfaction.
Helala M, Furnell SM