Online Banking and User Security

The usability and design team at Interpix understands your users

In the summer of 2008, a report by usability and engineering professionals presented the results of its study of banking websites and user-visible security design flaws. The report, a rigidly researched academic paper, showed that despite the vectoring growth of online banking coupled with increasingly pernicious, clever and chronic hacking, "design flaws were widespread. ... 76% of the sites in our survey suffered from at least one design flaw." 1

In some cases, these flaws left users more vulnerable to phishing. In other cases their personal banking information was left vulnerable to eavesdropping (balances, etc., visible to outside parties). In still other cases, banking websites did not do enough to ensure the strength of user passwords or enforce security to a strong enough degree, thus compromising the impression of security to users.

All of the issues covered in the report were "visible" to the user. On one hand, users did not expressly feel that the usability of these sites was an issue (all the sites in the report were well trafficked) and on the other hand, the report did not cover backend or hidden issues with user security.

What implications of the report apply to your online banking? Is the online banking website you use secure? Are you the owner of a banking website - and are you sure you don't need a usability company?

And what are the study's implications for other kinds of sites? We'll suggest one: that usability goes far beyond testing what the user understands, extending to what the user really needs. The security of user data, true trust in a website and the protection of users above and beyond merely protecting their accounts are an aspect of the usability evaluation of any bank website user experience.

Contact Interpix today for a usability assessment