What Do You Know About Alert Fatigue? An Interview with John Robertson

Human-Centered Security

“People try to talk about the technical user experience at too high of a level. You talk about alert fatigue and you kind of understand what alert fatigue is just by the name. Yeah, there’s a lot of alerts. But watching it in action is different.”

In this episode, Heidi interviews John about what he’s learned about designing for security analysts. We talk about:

• The importance of understanding user workflows. “Alert fatigue” is just a saying until you actually observe it in action.
• While trust is hard to measure, it’s critical for improving the security user experience.
• Practical tips on how to promote cross-disciplinary collaboration.

John Robertson is a researcher interested in the experience of technical users, especially those in cybersecurity. Recently his focus has been understanding workflows of Cybersecurity Analysts in Security Operations Centers.