Heuristics, Zero Day threats and UX

Patrik Bubák
Nov 5 · 2 min read

One way of trying to achieve common ground whilst trying to make our point is to use examples that tell a story using elements our audience can make better sense of, has experience with, can relate to, or better understand.

When talking UX the most prominent mention is that research is everything. In the world of software, some of the most important findings are achieved through testing. Some of the methods UX employs are Heuristic Analysis and conduct testing to identify usability issues, and why this piece is dedicated specifically to those 2 is because we can find their counterparts in the world of software, particularly cybersecurity.

Antivirus software typically comes with a setting referred to as Heuristic Analysis, which essentially means that when the application scans your computer it compares its findings with entries in its database to detect and isolate threats. UX employs a similar approach when a designer assesses a product for “vulnerabilities” — scan through an interface looking for elements that do not meet standards. Heuristics are possible because of research that generates the findings we can compare against. Everything we know to this point and compare to has been compiled as a result of researching, learning and testing.

But there’s only so far we can get with Heuristics, which are limited to what we know. How do we tackle what we don’t know?

Modern antivirus tools are equipped with features that allow for Zero Day threat discovery. Perhaps our natural instincts lead us to assume that this could be tied to prediction algorithms as means of prevention.

As humans we are notoriously bad at predicting things, and that imperfection becomes part of what we make.

The other day I came across an interesting piece that mentions Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) — a method commonly used these days. Essentially it means avoiding infection through remote isolation — before it can reach a user’s machine. We can think of usability studies as UX’s counterpart of this, because they help us detect issues in isolation prior to development, reducing costs and saving time. Similarly, you’d have software run in an isolated environment, a virtual machine or sandbox, to study its behaviour through observation. With observation comes detection, and potentially, in case of an infection isolation. Then comes analysis / deconstruction to harvest the information that can guide us to a solution.

I hope this short piece can serve as a reference whenever you try to think of ways to bring up the importance of usability testing in your environment.

Patrik Bubák

Written by

Product Designer, Mindfulness practitioner, Healthy Living advocate, avid Gamer.

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