Visible to the public Vision: Shred If Insecure – Persuasive Message Design as a Lesson and Alternative to Previous Approaches to Usable Secure Email Interfaces

TitleVision: Shred If Insecure – Persuasive Message Design as a Lesson and Alternative to Previous Approaches to Usable Secure Email Interfaces
Publication TypeConference Paper
Year of Publication2020
AuthorsTolsdorf, J., Iacono, L. Lo
Conference Name2020 IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops (EuroS PW)
Keywordscryptography, Electronic mail, Encryption, phishing, predictability, pubcrawl, Resiliency, Scalability, security, Security Heuristics, Tools, usability, usable secure email, User Interface Design
AbstractDespite the advances in research on usable secure email, the majority of mail user agents found in practice still violates best practices in UI design and uses ineffective and inhomogeneous design strategies to communicate and let users control the security status of an email message.We propose a novel interaction and design concept that we refer to as persuasive message design. Our approach is derived from heuristics and a systematic meta-study of existing HCI literature on email management, usable secure email and phishing research. Concluding on this body of knowledge we propose the design of interfaces that suppress weak cues and instead manipulate the display of emails according to their technical security level. Persuasive message design addresses several shortcomings of current secure email user interfaces and provides a consistent user experience that can be deployed even by email providers.
DOI10.1109/EuroSPW51379.2020.00031
Citation Keytolsdorf_vision_2020