Re: ACTION-335 logotypes and ISSUE-96 discussion

I agree completely.  However, if testing or prior work show that the 
perfect world scenario (where all good sites use EV certs) is completely 
flawed (i.e. EV logos will never be noticed by users, be susceptible to 
spoofing, etc.), then there's little value in testing the realistic 
scenario.  Agreed?

serge

Ian Fette wrote:
> This action (ACTION-335) was to provide discussion topics for ISSUE-96. 
> I only really have one point, and I will try to state it more clearly 
> than at the meeting.
> 
> To me, the effectiveness of any of the logotype proposals (or the EV 
> proposals, for that matter) depends greatly upon the adoption of these 
> technologies by sites. We can do really cool flashy things when we get 
> an EV cert, or an EV-cert with a logo, but right now the only two sites 
> I can find using an EV cert are PayPal and VeriSign. Therefore, I wonder 
> how habituated people would become in practice, if they never (or 
> rarely) saw the EV/logotype interface stuff in use.
> 
> My proposal is that any usability testing of the EV and/or logotype 
> things in the spec not only reflect how users would behave in a land 
> where everyone is using EV-certs and life is happy, but rather also test 
> a more realistic case. That is, look at what the adoption is presently 
> and/or what we can reasonably expect it to be at time of last call, and 
> do usability testing in an environment that reflects that adoption rate 
> - i.e. some percentage of sites using EV certs, some percentage also 
> using logos, and another percentage still using "normal" SSL certs. My 
> worry is that we may be thinking "EV certs will solve X,Y, and Z", but 
> that may only be the case if users are used to seeing them on the 
> majority of sites, and should that not end up being the case, we need to 
> look at the usability and benefit in that scenario as well.
> 
> I think this is what the ACTION wanted, i.e. for me to state this point 
> more explicitly. I am going to therefore assume that my work on this 
> action is complete, unless I hear otherwise.
> 
> -Ian

-- 
/*
PhD Candidate
Vice President for External Affairs, Graduate Student Assembly
Carnegie Mellon University

Legislative Concerns Chair
National Association of Graduate-Professional Students
*/

Received on Monday, 12 November 2007 23:55:45 UTC