Usability Smells: An Analysis of Developers’ Struggle With Crypto Libraries
summary
Analysis of 2491 Stack Overflow questions across seven crypto libraries including OpenSSL, Libsodium, BouncyCastle, SJCL, crypto‑js, NaCl and PyCrypto extracts 17 concrete usability issues and maps them to Green and Smith’s ten principles, yielding four recurring usability smells. Most common problems are missing documentation, build and compatibility failures, and developers’ incorrect mental models; the smell doesn't play well with others—build/compatibility/performance gaps—is notably unaddressed by the original principles.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (10)
- 0:00Intro
- 0:41Definitions
- 1:25Code Smells vs. Usability Smells
- 2:03Fowler's Shotgun Surgery
- 2:49What's the problem?
- 6:27Stack Overflow Analysis
- 8:41What's Gone Wrong Here?
- 11:51What Usability Issues Do Developers Face?
- 13:11Developer issues vs Green & Smith Principles
- 15:52Conclusion
related talks
47mFootguns and factorisation: how to make users of your cryptographic library successful
44mMobiconf 2018: Marcin Krzyzanowski, PSPDFKit GmbH
43mA short examination on the intersection of security and usability
36mUse Cryptography; Don't Learn It
40m 10 Things you Need to Know before Implementing Cryptography
55mCrypto for Developers: Making Sane Choices
28mIdentifying and Addressing Usability Vulnerabilities
23mJS Bringing Crypto to the Masses