How does the perception of website data being insecure affect usability?

Question

If the user perceives that data entered into a website is insecure (if it is perceived that it can be hacked, stolen or tampered with), how is the usability of the site affected?

This question is in the context of websites which are

• content based,

• general utility,

• e-commerce,

• or any social networking site

I personally feel that if the data of a website involves any monetary transactions or any content that I wish to share with others should be highly secure and I should get confidence as a user that it will not be tampered with or viewed without proper permissions.

Answer 1

If the user perceives that data entered into a website is insecure (if it is perceived that it can be hacked, stolen or tampered with), how is the usability of the site affected?

This specific question is about the impact on site usage rather than site usability.

• The perception of security doesn't effect how easy a form is to fill out.
• The perception of security does, however, effect how likely a user is to fill out that form.

Sites that request sensitive or Personally Identifiable Information should both be, and feel, secure. If a site doesn't feel secure, the user will be dis-incentivized to use the site. The user will be more likely to distrust the site, which will build barriers between the user and requests to provide PII or to provide access to sensitive information.

Therefore, the site must implement many visual and interactive elements that communicate trustworthiness.

• Use of the color blue in the page design to represent professionalism and authority.
• Real-time validation of form elements.
• Simple, grammatical alert, warning and error messages.
• Valid and current SSL certificates to enable HTTPS communications.
• A simple, gold-standard domain name and TLD.
• Most of all, predictable reactions to common interactions.

This will encourage trust in the site, which will increase the perception of security, and increase usage/compliance.

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If we want to talk about usability rather than usage, reversing the logic of the question gets to the topic of usability. Rather, I'd ask:

How does usability effect if a user perceives that data entere into a website is insecure?

Answer 2

In general, people have different ideas about what information should be secured and what shouldn't. There is however a consensus on the security of, for example, banking information.

You could categorize it in this way:

For banking or e-commerce websites, the general user would want visual reassurance of security.

For social networking, the general user would want visual reassurance of privacy (control).

For content based websites and general utility websites, the general user would not care much for visual confirmation of security or privacy.

The best way to assess this is a more detailed level is to list the user tasks (use cases) of a specific website. Those tasks should give you a better idea of what the general user would expect in terms of visual reassurance of privacy or security.