Usable Security: Why Do We Need It? How Do We Get It?

Security experts frequently refer to people as “the weakest link in the chain” of system security. Famed hacker Kevin Mitnick revealed that he hardly ever cracked a password, because it “was easier to dupe people into revealing it” by employing a range of social engineering techniques. Often, such failures are attributed to users’ carelessness and ignorance. However, more enlightened researchers have pointed out that current security tools are simply too complex for many users, and they have made efforts to improve user interfaces to security tools. In this chapter, we aim to broaden the current perspective, focusing on the usability of security tools (or products) and the process of designing secure systems for the real-world context (the panorama) in which they have to operate. Here we demonstrate how current human factors knowledge and user-centered design principles can help security designers produce security solutions that are effective in practice

Connecting practice to research (and back to practice): making the leap from design practice to design research

This paper explores two questions: what skills and knowledge can be derived from research and brought back into design practice; and how can we better prepare designers to undertake research? Its aim was to enable design practitioners wishing to pursue research to understand the process and anticipate the scope and level of work. Additionally, it addressed the questions of how design education can incorporate a research-based curriculum and how professional bodies can promote the value of research to practitioners? A complementary paper was co-written and presented at the CONNECTED 07 conference, Sydney. It explores the process of undertaking a PhD within the framework of the UK design education system by examining it from a design and business perspective (Yee, J.S.R, Michlewski, K. and Bohemia, E. (2007) 'Interrogating the Academic Research Process in UK Design Education from Design and Business Perspectives', ConnectED 2007 – International Conference on Design Education, Sydney, (http://www.designdictator.com/publications/connected07.pdf). Yee’s research bridges the gap between contemporary design practice, the growth of professional knowledge and pedagogy, via empirical study and theoretical discourse. Yee is currently 2nd supervisor for a PhD, entitled; ‘The Development of a Framework to Understand Potential Relationships Between Services and Their Users’ and is contributing to the development of the Professional Practice Doctorate in Design in the CfDR

Tribes & Cultures – Cross-disciplinary Communication: Pinpointing the Issues for eLearning

Effective communication and co-operation across disciplines is needed to create and deploy eLearning systems so that they contribute to enhanced outcomes for students and teachers. Using a Grounded Theory methodology we probed the cultures of the participating tribes: the Educationalists; the Instructional Designers; and the Information Technology Specialists. Six salient themes emerged from the semi-structured interview data of respondents selected from the three tribes, each of which is described in detail in this article. These themes give rise to Six Rules of Thumb to help promote fruitful communication and interaction among the tribes and cultures of eLearning system stakeholders, and thus result in improved eLearning systems

demi: linking design with sustainability

This paper describes an educational framework offering one possible approach to linking sustainability and design. This framework, developed as part of the demi project, provides links to information new to designers thereby challenging the design status quo. For example, it incorporates the integration of different communities within designing - often from outside traditional boundaries - and an appreciation of environmental and social impacts as designs are conceived, produced, used and then discarded. The paper discusses the demi framework, its content and its educational potential. Further, it explores the possible transferability of the framework to other disciplines, promoting practical and widespread action in education for sustainability

E-Learning for Teachers and Trainers : Innovative Practices, Skills and Competences

Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.Final Published versio

Tangible user interfaces : past, present and future directions

In the last two decades, Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) have emerged as a new interface type that interlinks the digital and physical worlds. Drawing upon users' knowledge and skills of interaction with the real non-digital world, TUIs show a potential to enhance the way in which people interact with and leverage digital information. However, TUI research is still in its infancy and extensive research is required in or- der to fully understand the implications of tangible user interfaces, to develop technologies that further bridge the digital and the physical, and to guide TUI design with empirical knowledge. This paper examines the existing body of work on Tangible User In- terfaces. We start by sketching the history of tangible user interfaces, examining the intellectual origins of this field. We then present TUIs in a broader context, survey application domains, and review frame- works and taxonomies. We also discuss conceptual foundations of TUIs including perspectives from cognitive sciences, phycology, and philoso- phy. Methods and technologies for designing, building, and evaluating TUIs are also addressed. Finally, we discuss the strengths and limita- tions of TUIs and chart directions for future research

Using pattern languages in participatory design

In this paper, we examine the contribution that pattern languages could make to user participation in the design of interactive systems, and we report on our experiences of using pattern languages in this way. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the use of patterns and pattern languages in the design of interactive systems. Pattern languages were originally developed by the architect, Christopher Alexander, both as a way of understanding the nature of building designs that promote a ‘humane’ or living built environment; and as a practical tool to aid in participatory design of buildings. Our experience suggests that pattern languages do have considerable potential to support participatory design in HCI, but that many pragmatic issues remain to be resolved.</p

Information and interaction requirements for software tools supporting analogical design

AbstractOne mode of creative design is for designers to draw analogies that connect the design domain (e.g., a mechanical device) to some other domain from which inspiration is drawn (e.g., a biological system). The identification and application of analogies can be supported by software tools that store, structure, present, or propose source domain stimuli from which such analogies might be constructed. For these tools to be effective and not impact the design process in negative ways, they must fit well with the information and interaction needs of their users. However, the user requirements for these tools are seldom explicitly discussed. Furthermore, the literature that supports the identification of such requirements is distributed across a number of different domains, including those that address analogical design (especially biomimetics), creativity support tools, and human–computer interaction. The requirements that these literatures propose can be divided into those that relate to the information content that the tools provide (e.g., level of abstraction or mode of representation) and those that relate to the interaction qualities that the tools support (e.g., accessibility or shareability). Examining the relationships between these requirements suggests that tool developers should focus on satisfying the key requirements of open-endedness and accessibility while managing the conflicts between the other requirements. Attention to these requirements and the relationships between them promises to yield analogical design support tools that better permit designers to identify and apply source information in their creative work.Dr Gülşen Töre Yargın' s work was supported by the International Post Doctoral Research Fellowship Programme [BİDEB-2219] from the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK). Dr Nathan Crilly' s work was supported by an Early Career Fellowship [EP/K008196/1] from the UK s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).This is the accepted manuscript. It will be embargoed until 27/10/2015. The final version is available from CUP at http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9673077&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S089006041500007