Usable privacy: from grounded models to new guidelines and heuristics

Abstract

The development of usable interfaces for privacy policies is essential to increase users’ trust in technology and comply with legal requirements. This thesis aimed to design interfaces that allow laypeople to protect their online privacy. A comprehensive analysis was conducted, comprising a literature review, a thematic and cluster analysis, and an empirical evaluation. Six usable privacy heuristics (push) were derived, which effectively detect severe problems in privacy policy interfaces for laypeople. Moreover, initial usable privacy guidelines (pug) were formulated, and a novel process for developing usability criteria was proposed. Future research directions were suggested, such as applying these heuristics and guidelines to domains like human-robot interaction and human-artificial intelligence interaction.