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User Analysis

Our users are regular people, keenly interested in privacy but not necessarily knowledgeable about the technical details of cryptography. They want to discuss potentially sensitive or incriminating topics without being tracked.We interviewed multiple users to learn more about how they might value our product.

The Road Warrior

This user works as a consultant and is constantly on the road. It is very important for him to be able to communicate with clients, co-workers, and to his family back at home, and he relies very much on his mobile devices to allow him to stay in touch and coordinate his life. In his line of work he frequently deals with sensitive corporate information. He ends up using two mobile devices -- a secure device dedicated to work, and a personal one for other purposes. He understands the need to keep client information secure but doesn't really understand all of the ways in which using an unsecure device can actually be potentially harmful to his firm and/or himself.

Key Insights

Aware of potential security threats but not sure exactly how to protect himself

They could be political activists in an environment where the government doesn't support their viewpoints. They could be children wanting to discuss something without their parents seeing it. They could be researchers looking for a way to collect secure, anonymous data from others. Or they could be employees of an enterprise working on a sensitive project and don't want technical details to be divulged to outside sources.

Characteristics

Concerned with Privacy
Unconcerned with Technical Details
Concerned about Personal Safety

Task Analysis

General Actions

Task	Why	Frequency	Effort	Pitfalls
Authenticate Pseudonyms	To ensure the identity (or psudo-identity) of the intended recipient
Find Public Conversations	To discuss a topic	semi-often	medium	potentially lots of information
Erase evidence of communication	Break contact or association	rarely	easy	unsafe (can't undo)

Conversation Types

Task	Why	Frequency	Effort	Pitfalls	Others Involved
Have a Group Conversation
Have a Public Conversation
Have a Private Conversation

Conversation Actions

Task	Why	Frequency	Effort	Pitfalls	Others Involved
Join
Leave
Send
Receive
Log

Have a secure and anonymous group chat (private to the group).
- Join/leave the group chat.
- Send/receive messages.
- Log the group chat.
Have a public and anonymous conversation (readable by all).
- Join/leave the conversation.
- Send/receive messages.
- Log the conversation.
Have a direct, private, and anonymous and secure conversations.
- Send/receive messages.
- Log the conversation.
Authenticate pseudonyms.
Find public conversation topics.
Erase evidence of communication.

Questions

Have you ever found the need to securely converse with another person?
Have you ever censored what you were saying to someone because you were worried about privacy?

Interviews

Interview 1

Need to security converse with others?

Censored what they were saying due to privacy concerns?

etc.

Interview 2

The subject stated that he would use such a system for private conversations with his girlfriend. At first didn't feel that he would ever need true anonymity but felt that a simple encrypted messaging system could be useful. Apon further thought the subject noted that anonymity would be useful when discussing sensitive subjects about which he held a strong, potentially politically incorrect, opinion.

In order to go through the hassle of installing the app, the subject indicated that he would need a significant reason. The app would have to inspire trust.