Love at First Sight? A User Experience Study of Self-Sovereign Identity Wallets

Today’s systems for digital identity management exhibit critical security, efficiency, and privacy issues. A new paradigm, called Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI), addresses these shortcomings by equipping users with mobile wallets and empowering them to manage their digital identities. Various companies and governments back this paradigm and promote its development and diffusion. User experience often plays a subordinate role in these efforts, even though it is crucial for user satisfaction and adoption. We thus conduct a comprehensive user experience study of four prominent SSI wallets using a mixed-method approach that involves moderated and remote interviews and the User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ). We find that the examined wallets already provide a decent level of user experience, yet further improvements need to be done. In particular, the examined wallets do not make their novelty and benefits sufficiently apparent to users. Our analysis contributes to user experience research and offers guidance for SSI practitioners.