Effective privacy management requires that mobile systems‟ users be able to make informed privacy decisions as their experience and knowledge of a system progresses. Prior work has shown that making such privacy decisions is a difficult task for users because systems do not provide support for awareness, visibility and accountability when sharing privacy-sensitive information. This paper reports results of our investigation into the efficacy of real-time feedback as a mechanism for incorporating these features of social translucence in location-sharing applications, in order to help users make better privacy decisions. We explored the role of real-time feedback in the context of Buddy Tracker, a mobile location-sharing application. Our work focuses on ways in which real-time feedback affects people‟s behaviour in order to identify the main criteria for acceptance of this technology. Based on the data from a three week field trial of Buddy Tracker, a focus group session, and interviews, we found that when using a system that provided real-time feedback, people were more accountable for their actions and reduced the number of unreasonable location requests. We have used the results of our study to propose high-level design criteria for incorporating real-time feedback into information sharing applications in a manner that ensures social acceptance of the technology.

Reference:

L. Jedrzejczyk, B. A. Price, A. K. Bandara and B. Nuseibeh, ‘On The Impact of Real-Time Feedback on Users’ Behaviour in Mobile Location-Sharing Applications’, (To Appear) in Proceedings of the 6th Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS), 14-16 July, 2010, Redmond, WA.