[ux] Tor Configuration Dialoge User Study: participant videos and summaries

Linda Naeun Lee lnl at berkeley.edu
Tue Dec 1 19:42:59 UTC 2015


Hello all:

If you are curious, I just uploaded summaries of the participants, which
you can view here
<https://github.com/lindanlee/circumvention-ux-tor/blob/master/sessions/pre/participant-summaries.txt>.
The corresponding video files are here
<https://github.com/lindanlee/circumvention-ux-tor/tree/master/sessions/pre/videos>
.

The most represenative behaviors:

   - P3: this participant configured a bridge successfully (obfs3, the
   default), even though they didn't need to. They didn't know the difference
   between censored websites and censored internet connections.
   - P11: this participant tries to connect using vanilla tor by clicking
   connect, which doesn't work against a censor that blocks public Tor relays.
   Then they try to connect using vanilla tor because they answered that they
   didn't need or a proxy, which also didn't work. They try connecting with a
   bridge (obfs3, default) and no proxy, which works.
   - P14: watch this poor user try the same configuration 7 times(?!!) and
   fail and guess proxy settings.  27 minutes, later, we cut them off. Because
   they are convinced they need a proxy, they failed to connect because they
   never bother to pick a different bridge (chose obfs3, required meek or
   custom).


My personal favorite 3, if I can suggest:

   - P1: this participant makes a correct configuration (obfs3, no proxy),
   but since bootstrapping took too long, was convinced it was wrong. Then
   tried "connecting directly" by pressing connect on the first screen, which
   worked. But the participant was convinced that they made a direct
   connection.
   - P4: after successful configuration, the participant is convinced that
   the file explorer on windows IS the Tor browser for a long time, before
   figuring out what the browser is.
   - P5: watch this participant create an email account on the fly and use
   the auto responder to use a custom bridge to connect successfully.

Cheers,

-- 
Linda Naeun Lee
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