Designers need to consider misuse scenarios in planning. Here is brief note that I wrote up about misuse (and related) scenarios for my class on scenarios:
"While many scenarios focus on actions leading to the successful or unsuccessful completion of user goals, there are also scenarios that you might call "misuse scenarios" where you describe ways that your system is abused or mishandled. Take the case of a postal kiosk in a mall. Scenarios that could affect the success of your system could include common misuse scenarios like vandals who pour glue into the payment and postage openings or well-intentioned customers who put heavy packages (or chubby children) on the postal scale while rummaging through their purses or wallets for credit cards to pay for the postage. Misuse scenarios can be developed from field interviews, technical support databases, and "misuse workshops" where stakeholders brainstorm how bad things that a user can do to your system. Related scenario types include "exception scenarios" where there is an analysis of what could go wrong at various steps in a process and "obstacle scenarios" that describe things that might hinder progress toward a goal. There is a book that anyone interested in scenarios should consider by Alexander (2004). It has some examples of misuse scenarios. Alexander, I. (2004). Negative scenarios and misuse cases. In I. F. Alexander, & N. Maiden (Eds.) *Scenarios, stories, use cases through the systems development life cycle.* New York, NY: Wiley, pp. 119-139. Chauncey On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 10:11 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > I am watching a discussion with Dr. Herbert Thompson: > "Dr. Herbert Thompson is an internationally renowned expert in application > security testing, research and training. He was Security Innovation's > second employee, joining Founder Dr. James Whittaker in 2002. Dr. Thompson > earned his PhD in Applied Mathematics from Florida Institute of Technology > and is co-author or editor of 12 books, including "How to Break Software > Security: Effective Techniques for Security Testing." Dr. Thompson has > authored more than 50 academic and industrial articles on software > security." > > He talks about IT firms forgetting security threats/issues when developing > IT products. We as Interaction Designers also stress the importance of > user interaction but do we include abusers too? > > Dr. Thompson talks about an airline incident where he was able to hack > into a system due to boredom. He believes that the developers forgot to > see the "abuser" point of view. Do you think that this only concern the > engineers and programmers or can Interaction Designers provide useful help > here? (If they ever think about "abusers") > > Ali > > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [email protected] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
