A Methodology for Experimental Evaluation of a Software Assistant for the Development of Safe and Economically Viable Software

Very often software developers of IT security solutions tend to focus on subjects of privacy and security of the product neglecting other important aspects of the development such as socio-economics and usability that are crucial for the success of the product on the modern market. To address this problem, project CUES developed a software assistant that has an interdisciplinary approach. The assistant guides the developers of IT security solutions through an entire software development process by aiding to identify present problems and suggesting effective solutions from the fields of (a) Usability and User Experience, (b) socio-economics, (c) IT security, and other disciplines. In this paper, we propose a method to evaluate the assistant in the conditions that are closest to reality: the assessment of the software assistant is carried out through two case studies where at each two student teams have a task to develop a security related software that will also be attractive for users and the market. One of the student teams in each case study was supported by the assistant, whereas the second teams were not. The teams supported by the assistant performed better.