HCIL Researchers Present Paper at SOUPS 2016

Researchers in the Human-Computer Interaction Lab (HCIL) are presenting a paper next week at the 2016 Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS) that examines the human side of security-related software updates.

“They Keep Coming Back Like Zombies: Improving Software Updating Interfaces,” tackles the question of why users often fail to install security updates, leaving their devices open to exploitation by attackers.

“Our findings suggest that these updates are often seen by users as an interruption, or that they lack sufficient information to decide whether or not to update,” says co-author Marshini Chetty (left), an assistant professor in the College of Information Studies (iSchool) and member of the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS).

Chetty, who starts a new position at Princeton University this fall, says that while human-computer interaction practitioners are beginning to understand what factors affect software-updating behaviors, other questions remain on how to improve software-updating interfaces.

To that end, the HCIL group is active in designing and evaluating alternative updating interfaces.

Other researchers involved in the project include lead author Arunesh Mathur, a first-year doctoral student in information science, as well as current and former HCIL graduate students Josefine Engel, Victoria Chang and Sonam Sobti.

HCIL is a partnership between the iSchool and UMIACS. It is one of 16 labs and centers in UMIACS.