How Acceptable Is This? How User Experience Factors Can Broaden our Understanding of the Acceptance of Privacy Trade-Offs

Privacy is a timely topic that is increasingly scrutinized in the public eye. In spite of privacy and security breaches, people still frequently compromise their privacy in exchange for certain benefits of a technology or a service. This study builds on both technology acceptance (TA) and user experience (UX) research in order to explore and build hypotheses regarding additional dimensions that might play a role in the acceptability of privacy tradeoffs that are not currently accounted for in TA models. Using four scenarios describing situations with potential privacy trade-offs, we conducted a focus group study with 8 groups of participants (N = 32). Our results suggest that factors influencing privacy trade-offs go beyond existing TA factors alone. A technology's perceived usefulness plays an important role, as well as dimensions related to context, previous experiences, perceived autonomy and the feeling of control over the data being shared

Does Persuasive Technology Make Smartphones More Addictive? -- An Empirical Study of Chinese University Students

With the development of computer hardware, computers with persuasion have become more powerful and influential than ever. The latest trends show that Persuasive Technology integrates with cutting-edge technologies, such as Natural Language Processing, Big Data, and Machine Learning algorithms. As persuasion is becoming increasingly intelligent and subtle, it is urgent to reflect on the dark sides of Persuasive Technology. The study aims to investigate one of Persuasive Technology's accusations, making smartphones more addictive to its users. The study uses questionnaires and in-depth interviews to examine the impact of persuasive technologies on young smartphone users. The participants of the study are 18 to 26 years old Chinese university students. Ten interviewees were sampled randomly from the survey results. Eight interviewees shared their smartphone screen time for three consecutive weeks after the interview. Among the 183 participants, 84.70% (n=155) spend over (or equal to) four hours per day on their smartphone, 44.26% (n=81) indicate that smartphones negatively affect their studies or professional life. Ten interviewees evaluated that they could reduce screen time by 37% if they could avoid all persuasive functions. Five out of eight interviewees reduced their screen time by 16.72% three weeks after the interviews by voluntarily turning off some persuasive functions on their smartphones. This study provides empirical evidence to argue that persuasive technologies increase users' screen time and contribute to the addictive behaviours of young smartphone users. Some commonly used persuasive design principles could have negative long term impacts on users. To sum up, the ethical problems that Human-computer interaction (HCI) designers face and users' neglected rights of acknowledgement were discussed

A UX Approach to Privacy and Security: the Impact of User, Contextual and System-Related Factors

This position paper lays out current and future studies which we conduct on the UX aspects of security and privacy, our goal being to understand which factors influence privacy-related decision-making. We advocate using UX design methods in order to study interindividual differences, system-related and contextual factors involved in privacy and security attitudes and behaviors. These results will contribute to user-tailored and personalized privacy initiatives and guide the design of future technologies

Acceptability and Acceptance of Autonomous Mobility on Demand: The Impact of an Immersive Experience

Autonomous vehicles have the potential to fundamentally change existing transportation systems. Beyond legal concerns, these societal evolutions will critically depend on user acceptance. As an emerging mode of public transportation [7], Autonomous mobility on demand (AMoD) is of particular interest in this context. The aim of the present study is to identify the main components of acceptability (before first use) and acceptance (after first use) of AMoD, following a user experience (UX) framework. To address this goal, we conducted three workshops (N=14) involving open discussions and a ride in an experimental autonomous shuttle. Using a mixed-methods approach, we measured pre-immersion acceptability before immersing the participants in an on-demand transport scenario, and eventually measured post-immersion acceptance of AMoD. Results show that participants were reassured about safety concerns, however they perceived the AMoD experience as ineffective. Our findings highlight key factors to be taken into account when designing AMoD experiences

Do persuasive designs make smartphones more addictive? -A mixed-methods study on Chinese university students

Persuasive designs have become prevalent for smartphones, and an increasing number of users report problematic smartphone use behaviours. Persuasive designs in smartphones might be accountable for the development and reinforcement of such problematic use. This paper uses a mixed-methods approach to study the relationship between persuasive designs and problematic smartphone use: (1) questionnaires (N=183) to investigate the proportion of participants with multiple problematic smartphone use behaviours and smartphone designs and applications (apps) that they perceived affecting their attitudes and behaviours, and (2) interviews (N=10) to deepen our understanding of users’ observations and evaluations of persuasive designs. 25% of the participants self-reported having multiple problematic smartphone use behaviours, with short video, social networking, game and learning apps perceived as the most attitude- and behaviour-affecting. Interviewees identified multiple persuasive designs in most of these apps and stated that persuasive designs prolonged their screen time, reinforced phone-checking habits, and caused distractions. Overall, this study provides evidence to argue that persuasive designs contribute to problematic smartphone use, potentially making smartphones more addictive. We end our study by discussing the ethical implications of persuasive designs that became salient in our study

“We Need a Big Revolution in Email Advertising”: Users’ Perception of Persuasion in Permission-based Advertising Emails

Persuasive tactics intend to encourage users to open advertising emails. However, these tactics can overwhelm users, which makes them frustrated and leads to lower open rates. This paper intends to understand which persuasive tactics are used and how they are perceived by users. We first developed a categorization of inbox-level persuasive tactics in permission-based advertising emails. We then asked participants to interact with an email inbox prototype, combined with interviews (N=32), to investigate their opinions towards advertising emails and underlying persuasive tactics. Our qualitative findings reveal poor user experience with advertising emails, which was related to feeling surveilled by companies, forced subscriptions, high prior knowledge about persuasive tactics, and a desire for more agency. We also found that using certain persuasive tactics on the inbox level is perceived as ethically inappropriate. Based on these insights, we provide design recommendations to improve advertising communication and make such emails more valuable to users

The Perceived Influence of E-Shopping Cues on Customers’ Buying Decisions

peer reviewedE-shopping sites use a variety of design elements that affect the shopping process and lead customers to favorable buying decisions. Such elements also play a significant role as impulse buying behavior triggers. In this exploratory study based on online questionnaires (N = 401), we investigated customers’ perception of the influence of eleven common e-shopping cues on their buying decisions and explored the connection between the perceived influence of the cues and the respondents’ gender, education level, and neuroticism. We found (1) that participants group the e-shopping cues by their influence power; (2) participants’ gender and educational level contribute to a more critical/favorable perception of some shopping cues; (3) a connection between a higher level of neuroticism and greater perceived influence of shopping cues, which results in lower shopping risks. Drawing on our research, we offer several design recommendations for the advancement of e-shopping websites, particularly concerning the implementation of e-shopping cues.10. Reduced inequalitie

User Experience Design for E-Voting: How mental models align with security mechanisms

This paper presents a mobile application for vote-casting and vote-verification based on the Selene e-voting protocol and explains how it was developed and implemented using the User Experience Design process. The resulting interface was tested with 38 participants, and user experience data was collected via questionnaires and semi-structured interviews on user experience and perceived security. Results concerning the impact of displaying security mechanisms on UX were presented in a complementary paper. Here we expand on this analysis by studying the mental models revealed during the interviews and compare them with theoretical security notions. Finally, we propose a list of improvements for designs of future voting protocols.Comment: E-Vote-ID 2019 TalTech Proceeding

The effects of privacy-non-invasive interventions on cheating prevention and user experience in unproctored online assessments: An empirical study

peer reviewedPreventing cheating without invading test-takers’ privacy in high-stakes online summative assessments poses a challenge, especially when the assessment is remote and unproctored. We conducted a between-subjects experiment (N = 997) in a realistic online test simulation to investigate the effects of three privacy-non-invasive anti-cheating interventions (honor code reminder, warning message, and monitoring message) on cheating prevention from a user-centered perspective. The quantitative results indicated that, compared to a control condition, displaying a honor code reminder during an online test worked best in lowering the odds of cheating. None of the interventions affected user experience and test-taking self-efficacy significantly. Further open-ended questions revealed that interventions can cause distraction which in turn could potentially evoke negative emotions. The decision to cheat was influenced by the extent to which interventions conveyed that cheating is wrong and also by test-takers’ perception of getting caught if they cheated. We derived recommendations for a fair and cheating-preventive unproctored online assessment for researchers and practitioners