User-centered design of secure software

Abstract

With the advance of electronic commerce and other networked services there is a growing need for easy to use security software. The problem with the security features and applications in much of today's software is that it is very technology-oriented. In order to correctly use it a basic knowledge of the underlying technology is often necessary. Our objective is to develop a security concept that supports a user in making educated decisions and managing security issues in everyday networked service access situation. In this paper we present a user centered approach to the design of security software. We apply user centered design to the development of a security manager concept for a portable computer and communication device. The security manager supports the users in building a security policy and applying this policy to form secure connections over an open network.