Scrollytelling as an Alternative Format for Privacy Policies

TL;DR

This study explores scrollytelling as an engaging and effective alternative format for presenting privacy policies, enhancing user experience without compromising comprehension.

Contribution

It introduces a prototype of scrollytelling for privacy policies and provides empirical evidence of its benefits over traditional formats.

Findings

Improved user engagement and lower cognitive load

Comparable comprehension accuracy to traditional formats

Increased perceived clarity and willingness to adopt

Abstract

Privacy policies are long, complex, and rarely read, which limits their effectiveness in informed consent. We investigate scrollytelling, a scroll-driven narrative approach, as a privacy policy presentation format. We built a prototype that interleaves the full policy text with animated visuals to create a dynamic reading experience. In an online study (N=454), we compared our tool against text, two nutrition-label variants, and a standalone interactive visualization. Scrollytelling improved user experience over text, yielding higher engagement, lower cognitive load, greater willingness to adopt the format, and increased perceived clarity. It also matched other formats on comprehension accuracy and confidence, with only one nutrition-label variant performing slightly better. Changes in perceived understanding, transparency, and trust were small and statistically inconclusive. These findings suggest that scrollytelling can preserve comprehension while enhancing the experience of policy reading. We discuss design implications for accessible policy communication and identify directions for increasing transparency and user trust.