Usablity and security trade-off: a design guideline

Abstract

Requirements engineering and design are the first two phases of the Software Development Life-Cycle. Considerable research has addressed the requirements phase and a number of well-regarded tools exist to assist with that process. The design phase can also make use of a wide range of tools, including design principles, activities, best practices, techniques, and patterns, to improve the incorporation of requirements into the software design documents. However, the process of selecting the appropriate design tools to support each requirement is a complex task that requires considerable training and experience. It is also possible that design tools selected for different requirements can conflict with each other, reducing their effectiveness, increasing complexity, impacting usability or potentially causing security vulnerabilities. In this paper, we propose guidelines for selecting appropriate design tools to support the integration of usability and security requirements in the software design phase and to resolve conflicts between those tools. We demonstrate this approach with a case study that illustrates the design tool selection and analysis process.