Högskolan i Skövde

Privacy, Information, and Cybersecurity (PICS) are related properties that have become a concern for more or less everyone. A large portion of the responsibility for PICS is put on the end-user, who is expected to adopt PICS tools, guidelines, and features to stay secure and maintain organizational security. However, the literature describes that many users do not adopt PICS tools and a key reason seems to be usability. This study acknowledges that the usability of PICS tools is a crucial concern and seeks to problematize further by adding cognitive ability as a key usability aspect. We argue that a user’s cognitive abilities determine how the user perceives the usability of PICS tools and that usability guidelines should account for varying cognitive abilities held by different user groups. This paper presents a case study with focus on how cognitive disabilities can affect the usability of PICS tools. Interviews with users with cognitive disabilities as well as usability experts, and experts on cognitive disabilities were conducted. The results suggest that many of the usability factors are shared by all users, cognitive challenges or not. However, cognitive challenges often cause usability issues to be more severe. Based on the results, several design guidelines for the usability of PICS tools are suggested.