Motivating Users to Attend to Privacy: A Theory-Driven Design Study

• Main Authors: Shiri, Varun, Xiong, Maggie, Cheng, Jinghui, Guo, Jin L. C
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 07-05-2024
• Subjects: Computer Science - Human-Computer Interaction
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2405.03915

In modern technology environments, raising users' privacy awareness is
crucial. Existing efforts largely focused on privacy policy presentation and
failed to systematically address a radical challenge of user motivation for
initiating privacy awareness. Leveraging the Protection Motivation Theory
(PMT), we proposed design ideas and categories dedicated to motivating users to
engage with privacy-related information. Using these design ideas, we created a
conceptual prototype, enhancing the current App Store product page. Results
from an online experiment and follow-up interviews showed that our design
effectively motivated participants to attend to privacy issues, raising both
the threat appraisal and coping appraisal, two main factors in PMT. Our work
indicated that effective design should consider combining PMT components,
calibrating information content, and integrating other design elements, such as
visual cues and user familiarity. Overall, our study contributes valuable
design considerations driven by the PMT to amplify the motivational aspect of
privacy communication.