Photo of a "spoofed " popup over a real website









Another informative presentation by our local Puget Sound SIGCHI. Jefferey Friedberg, Chief Trust Architect for Microsoft, gave a spirited overview of the Internet Fraud Battlefield and users' concerns about the vulnerability of their personal information. With the ever-increasing sophistication and types of scams Internet visitors are exposed to, how can they be sure the website they're visiting is for real and not a "spoof" that will steal their credentials or worse.

Friedberg points to a critical weakness in the "trust user experience", where user's often don't have the knowledge or guidance to make good trust decisions. In many cases the underlying system architecture is not much help and does more to confuse than to enlighten. With more sensitive personal information, such as health records becoming digital and the growth in Web 2.0 social networking, foolproof trust models are essential.

Trust User Experience (TUX) is a combination of well designed user interface, new system architecture and the user's own mental models of what security looks like.

Friedberg presented some interesting case studies, research and strategies for improving the Trust User Experience.

Inspiring conference, workshops and talks by Interaction Designers from every corner of the world in a great city. Vancouver seems so much more urban and dense than Seattle.

There were so many choices, it was difficult to choose which workshop or talk to attend. Being on crutches after recent hip surgery didn't help much, but managed to attend the "Sketching Ideas" workshop. Great way to loosen up and make the connection between the brain and the tip of the pencil. The 'flow' and storyboarding exercises really got all of us thinking in new and unexpected ways.

Some of the other highlights for me were the "Gestalt or Where to put the Submit button" presentation, Prototyping with Fireworks and just being around so many inspiring people.

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