Exploring the Use of Pictograms in Privacy Agreements to Facilitate Communication Between Users and Data Collecting Entities: Randomized Controlled Trial
试验速览
- 阶段
- 不适用
- 状态
- 已完成
- 入组人数
- 57
- 试验地点
- 2
- 主要终点
- Increasing the level of understanding about health data
研究概览
简要总结
Background: Privacy agreements can foster trust between users and data collecting entities by reducing the fear of data sharing. Users typically identify concerns with their data privacy settings, especially when it comes to health data, but due to the complexity and length of privacy agreements, users opt to quickly consent and agree to the terms without fully understanding them.
Objective: This study explores the use of pictograms as potential elements to assist in improving the transparency and explanation of privacy agreements.
Methods: During the development of the pictograms, the Double Diamond design process was applied for 3 instances of user interactions and 3 iterations of pictograms. The testing was done by performing a comparative study between a control group, which received a fictional privacy agreement about a health tracking wearable with no pictograms, and an experimental group, which received pictograms. The pictograms were individually tested to assess their efficacy by using an estimated comprehension of information symbols test.
详细描述
Privacy agreements fulfill the important role of helping users understand how their data will be used by data collecting entities. The role of privacy agreements is to not only provide users with the chance to decide whether they want to disclose their data to an entity but also foster trust and reduce users' concerns about data sharing.
Many users are concerned about personal data collection, and privacy agreements may alleviate these concerns. However, due to the complexity of privacy agreements, there are barriers to understanding data use, which result in users agreeing to terms that they do not fully comprehend. The investigators explore the use of pictograms as a potential way to improve the transparency of privacy agreements and users' understanding of privacy agreements.
An evaluation was conducted to test whether the addition of the pictograms made reading privacy agreements more efficient and less frustrating for users. For this purpose, a questionnaire was developed along with 2 versions of a privacy agreement. The control group (31 participants) received the traditional version of the privacy agreement while the experimental group received the version of the privacy agreement that included the pictograms created by us (29 participants). The privacy agreement was an imaginary privacy agreement about the Fit-bit and the talked about the collection of health data through the wearable. Participants were recruited by using Amazon Mechanical Turk.
The survey was closed and distributed through Amazon Mechanical Turk-a website that allows people to fill out surveys for a small monetary gain. The administration of the survey was performed via Amazon Mechanical Turk, and security for the survey and the assurance that there were no duplicate responses were provided by the website. All questions were multiple-choice questions, and if there was a question that was not properly filled, the data for that whole entry were discarded.
The target population was people who had some understanding of technology, and the sample was a convenience sample.
研究设计
- 研究类型
- Interventional
- 分配方式
- Randomized
- 干预模型
- Parallel
- 主要目的
- Other
- 盲法
- None
入排标准
- 性别
- All
- 接受健康志愿者
- 是
入选标准
- •people that understand technology enough to understand data collection and data privacy.
排除标准
- •people that are not tech savvy enough to use things that require privacy agreements
结局指标
主要结局
Increasing the level of understanding about health data
时间窗: Day 1
This outcome was based on the premise that through the use of pictograms people would understand privacy agreements better and take less time to find the answers. The investigators measured it using a questionnaire and measured if people could correctly guess what were their rights. For example, the questionnaire would ask the participant "is your data being collected?" and then the participant would choose "yes", "no", "I don't know", and "I don't want to read all of that". With this the investigators were able to measure if they were actually understanding their right regarding their health data, which were presented in the privacy agreement. Each correct answer gets 1 point and the privacy agreement with the most points at the end had the template that made it easier for the participants to understand their rights. The higher the score, the better the outcome.
Decreasing frustration while reading privacy agreements
时间窗: Day 1
This outcome was based on the premise that through the use of pictograms people would experience less frustration when trying to find specific information and understand their rights in a privacy agreement. The investigators measured this using a self-reporting questionnaire where the participants would report what was their level of perceived frustration after reading the privacy agreement. This was measured using a Likert Scale of 5 points where 1 was very frustrated and 5 was neutral. The lower the score, the more frustrated participants reported being.
次要结局
- Overall understanding of the meanings of the pictograms as measured by the Estimated Comprehension of Information Symbols(Day 1)