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

TL;DR

This study applies Protection Motivation Theory to design and test a privacy motivation enhancement prototype, demonstrating improved user engagement with privacy information through targeted design strategies.

Contribution

It introduces a novel, theory-driven design approach to motivate users to attend to privacy, validated by experimental results and qualitative feedback.

Findings

Design increased threat and coping appraisals

Motivation to attend to privacy was significantly improved

Effective design combined PMT components with visual cues

Abstract

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.