No abstract

Decentralized identity management systems (IMSs) are envisaged to decrease fraud, enhance users' privacy and introduce transparency to the rather opaque business with personal data. Given these quite desirable features it is not surprising that many whitepapers discuss the technical feasibility of decentralized IMSs. What is missing, however, is the consideration of actual user requirements and their assessment of the decentralized IMS's ability to actually protect their privacy. We provide insights on the perceived usability of decentralized IMS features as well as on user concerns and requirements. The result of this study is a trigger for further and iterative usability testing that takes up the insights provided by this study. The result suggests that the usability of decentralized IMSs is not as straightforward as presumed by many companies and that a good deal of work is necessary to identify and implement actual user requirements into a functioning prototype.