RE: Note Section - Design Principles

My suggestion would be for W3C to sponsor (or co-sponsor with
appropriate partners from academia & industry) a further test of browser
security context usability, following more or less the methodology
already defined by Carnegie Mellon ... but this time drawing on a
larger, more representative  sample of users.
 
The objectives of the exercise would be:

*	
	Validate or refine our understanding of who the average web user
is and how much she understands security
*	
	Validate or refine our assumptions about how current security
cues are understood and used, and how well that works today
*	
	Test user reaction to proposed WSC solutions using UI prototypes
of new security indicators, messages, etc.

Michael McCormick, CISSP 
Lead Architect, Information Security 

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From: public-wsc-wg-request@w3.org [mailto:public-wsc-wg-request@w3.org]
On Behalf Of Mary Ellen Zurko
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 8:14 AM
To: McCormick, Mike
Cc: public-wsc-wg@w3.org
Subject: RE: Note Section - Design Principles



> I think the original description of average user was pretty accurate
> actually.  We work with a population of close to 10 million 
> consumers across a broad demographic spectrum, and most of them seem
> to have little or no understanding of how the web works much less 
> what the security dangers are, what certificates represent, etc.
>  
> Some survey or focus group based research in this area might prove 
> illuminating.  Without hard data we're all just guessing.

Would you like to propose something this WG could or should do, as an
addition to the Assumptions section of the Note?
        Mez