NIST, ITL, IAD-AUG-Cryptography-DevelopersTesting Data Collection Recruitment Email

January 15, 2021, ITL-16-0011

Usable Cryptography Interviews

Participant Recruitment Email

Recruitment Email for New Participants

Dear <name>,

I am writing on behalf of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Visualization and Usability Group to ask for your help with a Usable Cryptography study. I obtained your contact information from <insert source here>. As a <insert role here>, you may have valuable insight into challenges your organization may face or practices and resources employed when implementing or testing products that use cryptography.

Based on a prior “Use of Cryptography” survey we conducted in the summer of 2016, we are following up with a second study phase involving more in-depth interviews. The purpose of these interviews is to continue to explore challenges and usability issues encountered by organizations that design, implement, and test products that use cryptography. Specifically, we will be focusing on testing processes in the interview. We hope to use the results of the interviews to better inform cryptography education and improve the usability of standards and testing guidance to make navigation through cryptography resources and cryptography implementation easier for developers.

Specifically, our team at NIST is looking for study participants who are at least 18 years old and have experience developing or testing products that include cryptography. If you do not meet these criteria but know of others that do, please consider passing along your recommendations to us.

The interview will last no more than an hour and will include questions about your cryptography development and testing challenges and how/if you use cryptography standards. The interview can be conducted at a convenient location if you are in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. area, or via video teleconference or phone.

Your interview responses will be confidential, and your participation is voluntary. If you do not want to answer a specific question, you can skip it and go on to the next.

Please let me know if you are able to participate in this phase of our study or if you have any questions. You may contact me at [email protected] or 301-975-4972 or Mary Theofanos at [email protected] or 301-975-5889.

We appreciate your consideration and hope that you can participate in our study!