How to Assess the Usability Metrics of E-Voting Schemes

Abstract

Voters play an important role in end-to-end verifiable e-voting schemes because the schemes encourage them to carry out several security-critical tasks by themselves. If the voters cannot complete the tasks by themselves or experience bad usability while executing them, vote manipulations by either a faulty software or deliberate attacks cannot be detected which renders verification useless. Therefore, the scheme’s usability is of crucial importance and demands an early investigation of human factors when implementing e-voting systems. In this paper, we give an overview of user study design challenges when investigating end-to-end verifiable e-voting schemes. We provide guidelines that address these challenges and support researchers in the design of user studies. The guidelines are based on the literature and the authors’ experiences.