Usability Smells: An Analysis of Developers’ Struggle With Crypto Libraries

Nikhil Patnaik; Joseph Hallett; Awais Rashid

Usability Smells: An Analysis of Developers’ Struggle With Crypto Libraries

Nikhil Patnaik, Joseph Hallett, Awais Rashid

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference Contribution (Conference Proceeding)

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Abstract

Green and Smith propose ten principles to make cryptography libraries more usable, but to what extent do the libraries implement these principles? We undertook a thematic analysis of over 2400 questions and responses from developers seeking help with 7 cryptography libraries on Stack Overflow; analyzing them to identify 16 underlying usability issues and studying see how prevalent they were across the 3 cryptography libraries for which we had the most questions for on Stack Overflow. Mapping our usability issues to Green and Smith’s usability principles we identify 4 usability smells where the principles are not being observed. We suggest what developers may struggle the most with in the cryptography libraries, and where significant usability gains may be had for developers working to make libraries more usable.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings of the Fifteenth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security
Publisher	USENIX Association
Pages	245-257
Number of pages	13
Publication status	Published - 16 Aug 2019
Event	USENIX Security Symposium 2019 - Santa Clara, United States Duration: 11 Aug 2019 → 16 Aug 2019 Conference number: 28 https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity19

Conference

Conference	USENIX Security Symposium 2019
Abbreviated title	USENIX Security '19
Country/Territory	United States
City	Santa Clara
Period	11/08/19 → 16/08/19
Internet address	https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity19

Research Groups and Themes

Cyber Security
usability
API
software engineering

Access to Document

Full-text PDF (accepted author manuscript)
This is the author accepted manuscript (AAM). The final published version (version of record) is available online via Usenix at https://www.usenix.org/conference/soups2019/presentation/patnaik. Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher.
Accepted author manuscript, 200 KB

https://www.usenix.org/conference/soups2019/presentation/patnaik

Handle.net

Persistent link

Why Johnny doesn't write secure software? Secure software development by the masses
Rashid, A. (Principal Investigator) & Hallett, J. (Researcher)
1/10/18 → 31/12/21
Project: Research

Usable Abstractions for Secure Programming: A Mental Model Approach
Patnaik, N. (Author), Rashid, A. (Supervisor) & Warinschi, B. (Supervisor), 5 Dec 2023
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis › Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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Cite this

@inproceedings{001544ec9d694e69b29afaa21b5de38b,

title = "Usability Smells: An Analysis of Developers{\textquoteright} Struggle With Crypto Libraries",

abstract = "Green and Smith propose ten principles to make cryptography libraries more usable, but to what extent do the libraries implement these principles? We undertook a thematic analysis of over 2400 questions and responses from developers seeking help with 7 cryptography libraries on Stack Overflow; analyzing them to identify 16 underlying usability issues and studying see how prevalent they were across the 3 cryptography libraries for which we had the most questions for on Stack Overflow. Mapping our usability issues to Green and Smith{\textquoteright}s usability principles we identify 4 usability smells where the principles are not being observed. We suggest what developers may struggle the most with in the cryptography libraries, and where significant usability gains may be had for developers working to make libraries more usable.",

author = "Nikhil Patnaik and Joseph Hallett and Awais Rashid",

year = "2019",

month = aug,

day = "16",

language = "English",

pages = "245--257",

booktitle = "Proceedings of the Fifteenth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security",

publisher = "USENIX Association",

address = "United States",

note = "USENIX Security Symposium 2019, USENIX Security '19 ; Conference date: 11-08-2019 Through 16-08-2019",

url = "https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity19",

}

Patnaik, N , Hallett, J & Rashid, A 2019, Usability Smells: An Analysis of Developers’ Struggle With Crypto Libraries. in Proceedings of the Fifteenth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security. USENIX Association, pp. 245-257, USENIX Security Symposium 2019, Santa Clara, California, United States, 11/08/19. <https://www.usenix.org/conference/soups2019/presentation/patnaik>

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AU - Patnaik, Nikhil

AU - Hallett, Joseph

AU - Rashid, Awais

N1 - Conference code: 28

PY - 2019/8/16

Y1 - 2019/8/16

N2 - Green and Smith propose ten principles to make cryptography libraries more usable, but to what extent do the libraries implement these principles? We undertook a thematic analysis of over 2400 questions and responses from developers seeking help with 7 cryptography libraries on Stack Overflow; analyzing them to identify 16 underlying usability issues and studying see how prevalent they were across the 3 cryptography libraries for which we had the most questions for on Stack Overflow. Mapping our usability issues to Green and Smith’s usability principles we identify 4 usability smells where the principles are not being observed. We suggest what developers may struggle the most with in the cryptography libraries, and where significant usability gains may be had for developers working to make libraries more usable.

AB - Green and Smith propose ten principles to make cryptography libraries more usable, but to what extent do the libraries implement these principles? We undertook a thematic analysis of over 2400 questions and responses from developers seeking help with 7 cryptography libraries on Stack Overflow; analyzing them to identify 16 underlying usability issues and studying see how prevalent they were across the 3 cryptography libraries for which we had the most questions for on Stack Overflow. Mapping our usability issues to Green and Smith’s usability principles we identify 4 usability smells where the principles are not being observed. We suggest what developers may struggle the most with in the cryptography libraries, and where significant usability gains may be had for developers working to make libraries more usable.

M3 - Conference Contribution (Conference Proceeding)

SP - 245

EP - 257

BT - Proceedings of the Fifteenth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security

PB - USENIX Association

Y2 - 11 August 2019 through 16 August 2019

ER -

Usability Smells: An Analysis of Developers’ Struggle With Crypto Libraries

Abstract

Conference

Research Groups and Themes

Access to Document

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Projects

Why Johnny doesn't write secure software? Secure software development by the masses

Student theses

Usable Abstractions for Secure Programming: A Mental Model Approach

Cite this