Usable security
There is always this confrontation between Security and Usability in the area of human-computer interaction. And there are well-known cases where security constraints have made a system fully unusable. So this is a really interesting field for both security specialists and software designers. As I am not the expert I’ll only refer to some texts that I read recently (better said: still reading) and found very instructive and practical for my career.
The first one is Security Engineering, which gives a wide overview of general aspects of security. The Bible, very amusing and freely distributed. Not directly related to usability but it’s a needed base.
The second one is Security and Usability, which I recently bought and haven’t finished yet. In fact it’s a collection of essays from different experts regarding main topics about building secure usable systems. It’s interesting because it exposes practical cases.
And finally, it’s impossible to avoid reffering to the guru Bruce Schneier (I know, it’s always the same with gurus, xD). He’s writing lately many things about psychology behind perceived security and that’s the third corner of the Security-Usability-Trust triangle. I hope you like it. Just let me quote this part:
Like a squirrel whose predator-evasion techniques fail when confronted with a car, or a passenger pigeon who finds that evolution prepared him to survive the hawk but not the shotgun, our innate capabilities to deal with risk can fail when confronted with such things as modern human society, technology, and the media. And, even worse, they can be made to fail by others–politicians, marketers, and so on–who exploit our natural failures for their gain.
There is also a spanish translation of the last document.