Bad timing is the reason people disregard security warnings

Software developers should know that if they want people to pay attention to their security warnings on their computers or mobile devices, they need to make them pop up at better times.
A new study from BYU, in collaboration with Google Chrome engineers, finds the status quo of warning messages appearing haphazardly—while people are typing, watching a video, uploading files, etc.—results in up to 90 percent of users disregarding them.
Researchers found these times are less effective because of “dual task interference,” a neural limitation where even simple tasks can’t be simultaneously performed without significant performance loss. Or, in human terms, multitasking.
For example, 74 percent of people in the study ignored security messages (Example to the right) that popped up while they were on the way to close a web page window. Another 79 percent ignored the messages if they were watching a video. And a whopping 87 percent disregarded the messages while they were transferring information, in this case, a confirmation code.

http://news.byu.edu/news/most-peopl...hey-pop-our-computer-screen-why-they-come-bad