The user experience of malware
Malware is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner’s informed consent [Wikipedia definition], and we all hate it.
But is there something more relevant to say about the user experience of malware? Yes, because the definition of what constitutes malware is flexible and can affect very legitimate applications (like Facebook) or companies (like Intel or Sony). In an article for UXmatters, Paul J. Sherman looks at the wider context of this and comes up with a draft assessment tool.
“My position is that, like many qualitative attributes, malware is in the eye of the beholder. And, I’ll suggest a method that product or service developers can use to assess the risk that their users, the media, or the market at large might perceive their offerings as malware.”
