In this paper, we discuss end user requirements that we elicited for the use of malleable signatures in a Cloud-based eHealth scenario. The concept of a malleable signature, which is a privacy enhancing cryptographic scheme that enables the redaction of personal information from signed documents while preserving the validity of the signature, might be counter- intuitive to end users as its functionality does not correspond to the one of a traditional signature scheme. A qualitative study via a series of semi-structured interviews and focus groups has been conducted to understand stakeholders’ opinions and concerns in regards to the possible applications of malleable signatures in the eHealth area, where a medical record is first digitally signed by a doctor and later redacted by the patient in the cloud. Results from this study yielded user requirements such as the need for suitable metaphors and guidelines, usable templates, and clear redaction policies. 

Data privacy has been growing in importance in recent years, especially with the constant increase of online activity. Consequently, researchers study, design, and develop solutions aimed at enhancing users' data privacy. The wicked problem of data privacy is a dynamic challenge that defies straightforward solutions. Since there are many factors involved in data privacy, such as technological, legal, and human aspects, we can only aim at mitigating rather than solving this wicked problem.

Our aim was to explore challenges and opportunities with a focus on human aspects for designing usable crypto-based privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs). Mainly, there were three PETs in the cloud context included in our studies: malleable signatures, secret sharing, and homomorphic encryption. Based on the three PETs, services were developed within European research projects that were the scope of our user studies. We followed a user-centered design approach by using empirical qualitative and quantitative means for collecting study data. Our results and tinkering conveyed (i) analysis of different categories of user's perspectives, mental models, and trade-offs, (ii) user requirements for PET services, and (iii) user interface design guidelines for PET services. In our contributions, we highlight considerations and guidelines for supporting the design of future solutions.

Background:Third-party cloud-based data analysis applications are proliferating in electronic health (eHealth) because of the expertise offered and their monetary advantage. However, privacy and security are critical concerns when handling sensitive medical data in the cloud. Technical advances based on “crypto magic” in privacy-preserving machine learning (ML) enable data analysis in encrypted form for maintaining confidentiality. Such privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) could be counterintuitive to relevant stakeholders in eHealth, which could in turn hinder adoption; thus, more attention is needed on human factors for establishing trust and transparency.

Objective:The aim of this study was to analyze eHealth expert stakeholders’ perspectives and the perceived tradeoffs in regard to data analysis on encrypted medical data in the cloud, and to derive user requirements for development of a privacy-preserving data analysis tool.

Methods:We used semistructured interviews and report on 14 interviews with individuals having medical, technical, or research expertise in eHealth. We used thematic analysis for analyzing interview data. In addition, we conducted a workshop for eliciting requirements.

Results:Our results show differences in the understanding of and in trusting the technology; caution is advised by technical experts, whereas patient safety assurances are required by medical experts. Themes were identified with general perspectives on data privacy and practices (eg, acceptance of using external services), as well as themes highlighting specific perspectives (eg, data protection drawbacks and concerns of the data analysis on encrypted data). The latter themes result in requiring assurances and conformance testing for trusting tools such as the proposed ML-based tool. Communicating privacy, and utility benefits and tradeoffs with stakeholders is essential for trust. Furthermore, stakeholders and their organizations share accountability of patient data. Finally, stakeholders stressed the importance of informing patients about the privacy of their data.

Conclusions:Understanding the benefits and risks of using eHealth PETs is crucial, and collaboration among diverse stakeholders is essential. Assurances of the tool’s privacy, accuracy, and patient safety should be in place for establishing trust of ML-based PETs, especially if used in the cloud.

The unprecedented pandemic of the infectious coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is still ongoing. Considering the limitations and restrictions imposed by COVID-19, we explored the role of technology and the extent of usage by end-users. In our online survey, we investigated users’ perspectives on their use of technologies in different contexts (e.g., work, entertainment), taking into consideration intrinsic factors such as health consciousness, perceived social isolation, and pandemic-related concerns. Results from 218 respondents show a significant increase in technology use in all investigated contexts after the pandemic occurred. Moreover, the results suggest that different factors may contribute to such increases, depending on the context. It appears that perceived social isolation, concerns about the pandemic, and tracking have the most prominent influence on different use of technology. Furthermore, open-ended responses include beneficial opportunities, concerns & consequences, and behavioral transformations & adaptations due to COVID-19. Our findings provide insights for designing and developing new technologies, especially for communication and entertainment, to support users’ needs during a pandemic.

The importance and perception of privacy varies from one context to the other. However, everyone values his or her privacy to a certain extent. The subjectivity of that value, attitudes, and behaviors would depend on different entangling factors. It is important to understand the motivation that influences human behavior, whether to protect or share their information. In this paper, we aim at understanding the boundaries of privacy, factors influencing information sharing behavior including experiences (reciprocities of privacy), and efforts taken to protect one’s data. We collected data using quantitative (survey/quiz) and qualitative means (focus groups). In the survey/quiz, our results showed that intrusion experience and awareness have a significant correlation between sharing of data. Furthermore, our focus groups results yielded details on influencing factors for privacy reciprocities and tradeoffs. We discuss our results in terms of privacy incentives and factors influencing the sharing behavior of their information. Finally, we highlight the complexity of behavior where intrinsic and extrinsic motivations could clash and result in a dilemma such as the privacy paradox phenomenon. © 2019, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

eXtended Reality (XR) technologies will play a key role in the digital (r)evolution of modern societies, as they will enable services allowing humans to experience an immersive interaction with virtual, mixed, and augmented realities (VR, MR, and AR) in different societal contexts, including education, entertainment, transportation, manufacturing, and healthcare.

Technological advancements have allowed the design of more realistic virtual characters, for example, in-game development; meanwhile, researchers argue that more realism is not always suitable. As an explorative pilot study, this thesis investigates the uncanny among human-like agents and intelligent systems with human-like attributes. The thesis focuses on the uncanny theories to understand whether Mori's Uncanny Valley (UV) or Tinwell's Uncanny wall (UW) is more suitable when designing with a user-centred approach. The study facilitated two remote focus group workshops consisting of seven participants to understand the participant's expectations, needs and desires of existing and future AI technology. The participants consisted of two target groups, gamers and non-gamers, in order to understand if exposure to AI leads to adoptability of the technology. The participants described their perspectives and needs of existing AI assistants, and their preferences of human-like cross modality such as voice and avatar for future assistants. The research activities resulted in insights and four themes: rejection of existing assistant technology, productivity and task management, expectations of future AI assistants and balancing human-likeness. Findings show that participants reject existing assistant technologies, as old tangible habits, social norms, and incompatibility prevent the adoption of existing assistant technology. While both gamers and non-gamers seek a balance between generic robotics and pure human likeness, none of the participants fully adopted the idea of human likeness as it generates uncanny feelings.

The purpose of the study is to elaborate the Wizard-of-Oz (WOz) technique by using it at a distance for design and elicitation of requirements and requests as part of a Participatory Design process (i.e. remotely - where the wizard and participant are located in different geographical locations). This study aims at evaluating what the salient traits in the participatory discussions are by using the WOz technique at a distance, what similarities there are in function or expression between non-verbal expressions in GUI-ii and ordinary physical interviews, and how WOz at a distance fit into the current state of the Participatory design field.

In an early design phase of a project, ten experimental WOz-at-a-distance sessions and five face-to-face interviews were held. The experimental sessions’ focus was on the codesign of early drafts of the interaction design for a digital tool for the planning of crisis management exercises. The interaction design was developed with a WOz system. The sessions offered co-design between a designer and a co-designer by having joint access to a graphical user interface (GUI), and to verbally communicate with each other. These sessions had a twofold approach where the focus could shift seamlessly between design and walkthrough.

The results from this study show that WOz at a distance, as used in this study, offers an approach for a seamless switch between design-phase and evaluation-phase in the form of walkthroughs. Having the GUI present as a boundary object whilst discussing the GUI and its interaction design enables a natural way of designing and evaluating the functions and interaction design of the upcoming system.

The results also show that even if the participatory discussion lacks the face-to-face meeting between the interlocutors there are some similarities between those discussions and the face-to-face interviews in function and use of non-verbal expressions.

Participatory discussions, when using WOz technique at a distance is a method where the participatory mindset is prominent and is a flexible approach that fits well with the overarching views on Participatory design.

The amount of personal identifiable information that people distribute over different online services has grown rapidly and considerably over the last decades. This has led to increased probabilities for identity theft, profiling and linkability attacks, which can in turn not only result in a threat to people’s personal dignity, finances, and many other aspects of their lives, but also to societies in general. Methods and tools for securing people’s online activities and protecting their privacy on the Internet, so called Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs), are being designed and developed. However, these technologies are often seen by ordinary users as complicated and disruptive of their primary tasks.

In this licentiate thesis, I investigate the usability aspects of three main privacy and security enhancing mechanisms. These mechanisms have the goal of helping and encouraging users to protect their privacy on the Internet as they engage in some of the steps necessary to complete a digital transaction. The three mechanisms, which have been investigated within the scope of different research projects, comprise of (1) graphical visualizations of service providers’ privacy policies and user-friendly management and matching of users’ privacy preferences “on the fly”, (2) methods for helping users create appropriate mental models of the data minimization property of anonymous credentials, and (3) employing touch-screen biometrics as a method to authenticate users into mobile devices and verify their identities during a digital transaction.

Results from these investigations suggest that these mechanisms can make digital transactions privacy-friendly and secure while at the same time delivering convenience and usability for ordinary users.

This paper discusses the approach taken within the PrimeLife project for providing user-friendly privacy policy interfaces for the PrimeLife Policy Language (PPL).We present the requirements, design process and usability testing of the “Send Data?” prototype, a browser extension designed and developed to deal with the powerful features provided by PPL. Our interface introduces the novel features of “on the fly” privacy management, predefined levels of privacy settings, and simplified selectionof anonymous credentials. Results from usability tests showed that users understand and appreciate these features and perceive them as being privacy-friendly, and they are therefore suggested as a good approach towards usable privacy policy display and management. Additionally, we present our lessons learnt in the design process of privacy policy interfaces.

The use of mobile smart devices for storing sensitive informationand accessing online services is increasing. At the same time, methods for authenticating users into their devices and online services that are not only secure, but also privacy and user-friendly are needed. In this paper, we present our initial explorations of the use of lock pattern dynamics as a secure and user-friendly two-factor authentication method. We developed an application for the Android mobile platform to collect data on the way individuals draw lock patterns on a touchscreen. Using a Random Forest machine learning classier this method achieves an average Equal Error Rate (EER) of approximately 10.39%, meaning that lock patterns biometrics can be used for identifying users towards their device, but could also pose a threat to privacy if the users' biometric information is handled outside their control.

Possible attacks on mobile smart devices demand higher security for applications handling payments or sensitive information. The introduction of a tamper-proof area on future generations of mobile devices, called Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), is being implemented. Before devices with embedded TEEs can be deployed to the public, investigations on usability aspects of Trusted User Interfaces (TUI) are needed. This article describes the process we have followed at gathering requirements, prototyping and testing suitable designs for TUIs in combination with a touch-screen biometric system. At the end, we present relevant findings of a pilot study that we have conducted using an Experience Sampling Method (ESM) as part of our ongoing work.

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: center dot A qualitative study of Global Virtual Teams (GVTs) and their challenges during the Covid-19 Pandemic. center dot GVT members became proactive in dealing with the challenges of 100% remote working. center dot GVTs adapt their methods of working and the tools available to them. center dot Communication failures, building trust and relationships, and resolving conflict are significant challenges. center dot Lack of informal communication opportunities adversely affects relationships in GVTs. center dot Further investigation of gender differences in attitudes and practices are prompted; and the associations between trust and conflict resolution in virtual relationships. Virtual work introduces distinct challenges when compared to face-to-face or on-site work. Communication and collaboration are key factors in team development and in team performance. When teamwork is of a global nature, imposed because of a pandemic, then additional variables are introduced into the equation. The challenges that global virtual teams (GVTs) encounter when communicating and developing in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic impacts how work is structured and teams develop. This qualitative study was conducted just over 1 year after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic when working from home became mandatory and particular challenges for GVTs became apparent. Data are gathered through an online anonymous survey and followed by semi-structured video-mediated interviews with staff in a large multinational software development company. Findings show that GVTs encounter a number of distinct challenges than face-to-face teams. However, individuals are actively adapting to the situation in which they find themselves and are learning to deal with the challenges by being proactive. Even though the tools used previously may not be entirely suitable for virtual work, GVTs learn to change how tools are used to be more productive and collaborative. Challenges continue to exist in areas, such as knowledge gathering and knowledge sharing. Communication failures can lead to delays and confusion. The findings also indicate that even though GVTs are not communicating as much informally or socially with their colleagues because of remote working in the pandemic, being remote is not having a negative effect on the ability to get work done. Some aspects of team development can be negatively affected when working in GVTs. Impacts are identified relating to trust and relationship building, as well as being able to identify and resolve conflict. These results prompt further research opportunities as organizations and individuals continue to adapt and embrace global virtual teamwork.

Working together at distance is no easy thing and the usability of the digital workspaces used is of utmost importance. Companies providing these digital workspaces constantly needs to evaluate the usability to find problems and improve their product with design principles for designing interactive systems. The purpose of this study is to contribute with knowledge of the usability of the digital workspace MS Teams. There are several methods for usability evaluation but the most fundamental is to test with real users, a usability test.

The method used to evaluate the usability of Microsoft Teams is a usability tests with participants as close to the intended end-users as possible and with post-test interviews after each test. During the usability test the participants were observed whilst using the product and thinking aloud. Thinking aloud is the participant, while using the product, continuously think out loud which gives the researcher an opportunity to understand how the participants view the product and to identify any misconceptions they might have.

The main results show that there are several usability problems with Microsoft Teams especially during the log on process and with changing output source. At the same time the results show that sharing files and calling are some of Microsoft Teams strengths in regard to usability and that the perceived usability of Microsoft Teams is high.

Beim Herunterladen von Smartphone-Applikationen wird bei den meist genutzten Plattformen kaum über den Datenaustausch und den Datenschutz informiert. Diese Studie zeigt den Einfluss einer im App-Markt implementierten Datenschutzskala auf das Nutzerverhalten. Die hinzugefügten App-spezifischen Informationen zum Datenaustausch und Datenzugriff führten zu einer sachkundigeren Applikationsauswahl bezüglich des Datenschutzes. Insgesamt 82 Teilnehmende wurden gebeten, vorgegebene Aufgaben an einem Smartphone zu erfüllen. Das Auswahlverhalten im einem prototypisierten App-Markt wurde aufgezeichnet und mit Hilfe eines Interviews von den Teilnehmenden reflektiert. Vier Stichproben wurden jeweils verschiedene Bedingungen dargeboten, um den Einfluss auf das Auswahlverhalten näher zu erfassen.

This paper presents an empirical study on user behavior, decision making, and perception about privacy concern while selecting apps. An app store demo was presented to the user with a minor modification---a privacy indicator for each app. After carrying out several tasks using this modified mobile interface, participants were interviewed to document reasons behind their decisions, thought process, and perception regarding individual privacy. A total of 82 adults volunteered under the pretext of a usability study. A significant influence of the privacy indicator on their app selection behavior was observed, although this influence decreased in case of familiar apps. Furthermore, responses from questionnaires, data from eye-tracking device and documented interviews, with video confrontation showed coherence with respect to the corresponding app selection behavior.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore the expectations and experiences regarding a robotic shower, from a dual user perspective. Design/methodology/approach This was an explorative qualitative study in which elderly and personnel were interviewed before the robotic shower was installed and again after four or five months of usage. Findings The elderly participants found the robotic shower empowering. The personnel's experiences encompassed their own work conditions, as well as the user value for the elderly. A shared experience for both user groups was a more independent shower situation for the elderly. Originality/value This study presents a dual user experience of a DAT in an intimate care situation and shows the importance of including both elderly and personnel to fully understand the value of DATs.

Purpose - This paper aims to explore co-design as a method for actively involving young consumers in the design of an alcohol education program that utilizes an interactive Virtual Reality (VR) component. Design/methodology/approach - Dietrich et al. (2017) six-step framework was applied to a co-design project involving four groups of 14- to 16-year-old Australian high school students. Data collection included observations by three facilitators, written feedback from members of each group and video presentations of the generated ideas. The data analysis focused on investigating the applicability of the six-step framework to young consumers and evaluating the quality and practicality of the generated ideas. Findings - Sensitization is key to enabling young consumers to become equal participants during the co-design process. Sensitization allowed the participants to engage in the design task in a playful manner, which fostered active participation and creative insights during the co-design session. A team approach based on interactivity and group autonomy enabled adolescents to contribute insights into their specific needs and wants. This was complemented by a trusting environment and the presence of immediately available yet "hands off" facilitators. Research limitations/implications - The findings are limited to one specific sample and design task. Future research is required that investigates co-design with young consumers in different contexts. Practical implications - This paper provides guidance for the application of co-design with young consumers by highlighting the importance of sensitization and facilitation. Originality/value - This study marks one of the first approaches to co-designing alcohol education programs, including VR components, with young consumers. The findings contribute to a better understanding of the consequences of involving young consumers through co-design.

How is ethics shaped by the particularities of a design? Through a detailed video analysis, we explore how ethicality is shaped in interaction between a choreographer, a performer and a choir of five drones, performing together on the opera stage. We pinpoint how movements enabled by the human-drone assemblage may limit or liberate artistic expressions vis-à-vis the norms of operatic performance. From a somaesthetics perspective on ethics, we show how the process of crafting rich experiences together with drones can deepen sensory appreciation skills, leading to an increased understanding of underlying somatic drivers and imposed norms. Somatic awareness thereby enables a richer repertoire of movements, expanding the ability to freely choose how to act, and cultivating empathy towards others. This shifts our understanding of ethics in HCI as solely about abstract rules or policies 'out there' to also concern the specifics of how technology informs or dictates movement and experience. 

Movement-based interactions are gaining traction, requiring a better understanding of how such expressions are shaped by designers. Through an analysis of an artistic process aimed to deliver a commissioned opera where custom-built drones are performing on stage alongside human performers, we observed the importance of achieving an intercorporeal understanding to shape body-based emotional expressivity. Our analysis reveals how the choreographer moves herself to: (1) imitate and feel the affordances and expressivity of the drones’ ’otherness’ through her own bodily experience; (2) communicate to the engineer of the team how she wants to alter the drones’ behaviors to be more expressive; (3) enact and interactively alter her choreography. Through months of intense development and creative work, such an intercor- poreal understanding was achieved by carefully crafting the drones’ behaviors, but also by the choreographer adjusting her own somatics and expressions. The choreography arose as a result of the expressivity they enabled together.

My PhD research examines the application of gamification techniques in the distribution and consumption of news in the emerging mobile society. The focus is placed on persuasive design and game mechanics in order to motivate, engage, and create new habits of news consumption in the mobile audiences.

New efforts are needed in order to capture the emerging individual structures of the self, through the engagement with technological personalized systems that turn life towards short term, fragmented information, on-the-go life styles. New techniques designed to overcome the challenges of going mobile and to empower and engage audiences that are arising, such as persuasive design and gamification.

The impact of Social Collective Intelligent Systems (SCIS) on the individual right of privacy is discussed in this chapter under the light of the relevant privacy principles of the European Data Protection Legal Framework and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Privacy Guidelines. This chapter analyzes the impact and limits of profiling, provenance and reputation on the right of privacy and review the legal privacy protection for profiles. From the technical perspective, we discuss opportunities and challenges for designing privacy-preserving systems for SCIS concerning collectives and decentralized systems. Furthermore, we present a selection of privacy-enhancing technologies that are relevant for SCIS: anonymous credentials, transparency-enhancing tools and the PrimeLife Policy Language. Finally, we discuss how these technologies can help to enforce the main legal principles of the European Data Protection Legal Framework, and argue how provenance and reputation can be designed in a privacy preserving manner.

Storing personal information in a secure and reliable manner may be crucial for organizational as well as private users. Encryption protects the confidentiality of data against adversaries but if the cryptographic key is lost, the information will not be obtainable for authorized individuals either. Redundancy may protect information against availability issues or data loss, but also comes with greater storage overhead and cost. Cloud storage serves as an attractive alternative to traditional storage as one is released from maintenance responsibilities and does not have to invest in in-house IT-resources. However, cloud adoption is commonly hindered due to privacy concerns.

Instead of relying on the security of a single cloud, this study aims to investigate the applicability of a multi-cloud solution based on Secret Sharing, and to identify suitable options and guidelines in a configuration user interface (UI). Interviews were conducted with technically skilled people representing prospective users, followed by walkthroughs of a UI prototype.

Although the solution would (theoretically) allow for employment of less “trustworthy” clouds without compromising the data confidentiality, the research results indicate that trust factors such as compliance with EU laws may still be a crucial prerequisite in order for users to utilize cloud services. Users may worry about cloud storage providers colluding, and the solution may not be perceived as adequately secure without the use of encryption. The configuration of the Secret Sharing parameters are difficult to comprehend even for technically skilled individuals and default values could/should be recommended to the user.

This article presents the results of a trend scouting study on the applicability of contemporary information privacy and information security research in future defence scenarios in a 25-year-horizon. We sketch the expected digital warfare and defence environment as a “battlefield of things” where connected objects, connected soldiers and automated and autonomous sensing and acting systems are core elements. Based on this scenario, we discuss current research in information security and information privacy and their relevance and applicability for the future scenario.

End-users on the Internet of Things (IoT) will encounter many different devices and services; they will need to decide whether or not they can trust these devices and services with their information. We identify three items of trust information that end-users will need to determine if they should trust something on the IoT. We create a taxonomy of the likely scenarios end-users will encounter on the IoT and present five trust strategies for obtaining this trust information. Upon applying these strategies to our scenarios, we find that there is no strategy that can work efficiently and effectively in every situations; end-users will need to apply the strategy that best fits their current situation. Offering multiple trust strategies in parallel and having this information transparent to end-users will ensure a sustainable IoT.

Recent HCI research in information security and privacy focuses on the Elderly. It aims at the provision of inclu-sive, Elderly-friendly interfaces for security and data protection features. Much attention is put on care situa-tions where the image of the Elderly is that of sick or disabled persons not mastering contemporary infor-mation technology. That population is however a frac-tion of the group called the Elderly. In this position pa-per, we argue that the Elderly are a very diverse popu-lation. We discuss issues rising from researchers and software architects’ misconception of the Elderly as technology-illiterate and unable. We suggest a more nuanced approach that includes changing personal abil-ities over the course of life.

One of the great innovations of the modern world is the Smartphone app. The sheer multitude of available apps attests to their popularity and general ability to satisfy our wants and needs. The flip side of the functionality these apps offer is their potential for privacy invasion. Apps can, if granted permission, gather a vast amount of very personal and sensitive information. App developers might exploit the combination of human propensities and the design of the Android permission-granting interface to gain permission to access more information than they really need. This compromises personal privacy. The fact that the Android is the globally dominant phone means widespread privacy invasion is a real concern.

We, and other researchers, have proposed alternatives to the Android permission-granting interface. The aim of these alternatives is to highlight privacy considerations more effectively during app installation: to ensure that privacy becomes part of the decision-making process. We report here on a study with 344 participants that compared the impact of a number of permission-granting interface proposals, including our own (called the COPING interface — COmprehensive PermIssioN Granting) and two Android interfaces. To conduct the comparison we carried out an online study with a mixed-model design.

Our main finding is that the focus in these interfaces ought to be on improving the quality of the provided information rather than merely simplifying the interface. The intuitive approach is to reduce and simplify information, but we discovered that this actually impairs the quality of the decision. Our recommendation is that further investigation is required in order to find the “sweet spot” where understandability and comprehensiveness are maximised

Transformative service design is dominated by expert-driven design solutions which, as is evidenced in the current context of alcohol education, might not successfully capture user needs. Responding to the call for exploring possible alternatives to conventional design approaches, this study investigates how users can be involved through co-design and what contributions they can make during this process. A six-step co-design process was used to collect and evaluate the qualitative data. Findings show that the recruitment and facilitation stages are key to the success of co-design sessions. Additionally, it was found that the user-designed programs differed from previously expert-designed programs, namely in terms of the delivery platforms used, duration of the program, and the level of adolescent involvement. Ultimately, the study shows that co-design, if fully utilised and users are empowered to contribute actively, can allow for the design of transformative services that are more aligned to the specific user needs.

Objective The current understanding of the breadth of individual differences in how eHealth technologies are perceived as useful for different purposes is incomprehensive. The aim/purpose of the study is to improve the understanding of diverse perceptions of the usefulness of technologies by exploring older adults' use of their patient-accessible electronic health records (PAEHRs).Methods The study applies and extends Affordance Theory based on an empirical analysis of data from the NORDeHEALTH 2022 Patient Survey on attitudes toward PAEHR in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Estonia. Responses from 3964 participants in Sweden, aged 65 + years were analysed. Data included demographics and agreement ratings to reasons for using PAEHR. To analyse variation in the reasons for using PAEHR, group comparisons were conducted based on gender (male/female), age group (65-74, 75-84 and 85+) and earlier encouragement to use PAEHR.Results Overall, the findings suggest that PAEHRs have multiple parallel affordance trajectories and affordance potencies that actualise differently depending on needs. The top reasons, pointing to both orientational and goal-oriented affordances for using PAEHR, were improving understanding of health issues, getting an overview of medical history/treatment and ensuring understanding of what the doctor said. Men reported more often sharing information with relatives or friends as a reason to access PAEHR. Women were more inclined, albeit similarly to men less frequently, to read their PAEHR for detecting errors. Age had little influence on reasons for using PAEHR.Conclusions The study applies and extends Affordance Theory in the context of older adults' PAEHR use based on findings from the largest national investigation of reasons for older users to access PAEHR in Sweden demonstrating the applicability of the theory in improving the understanding of the diversity of individual perceptions on eHealth technologies.

This study investigates the effect of gamification on in-store mobile advertisement. More specifically, it investigates the effect of gamification on the inclination to act on offers gained at point of purchase. For this purpose, a field experiment was conducted at a supermarket, where real customers were recruited. Eye tracking, smartphone activity logging and choice were used to investigate the customers’ behaviour. The results reveal that gamification is not always useful for increasing the tendency to act on offers. In fact, engagement in a gamified shopping task is needed; otherwise, the tendency to act on offers might even decrease when gamifying.

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) are on the rise, yet the knowledge about privacy preferences by different types of drivers in this context needs to be improved. This paper presents survey-based research (N = 528) focusing on preferences of drivers from South Africa and the Nordic countries for data processing and sharing by ITS, including future vehicular ad hoc networks. Our results indicate regionally framed drivers’ privacy attitudes and behaviours. South African participants have higher privacy concerns and risk perception. However, their preferences to share location data with police, family and friends, emergency services, and insurance companies are higher. Moreover, the region significantly affects preferences for transparency and control and sharing frequency, as well as willingness to pay for privacy, which are higher among the South Africans. We discuss how our results on factors, including region, impacting drivers’ privacy preferences can contribute to the design of usable privacy and identity management for ITS.

Introduktion: Operationssjuksköterskor arbetar i en avancerad miljö med stora krav på patientsäkerhet. Operationssjuksköterskornas kompetens behöver var hög och det kan vara utmanande att tillförskaffa sig nödvändig kompetens samt hålla sig kontinuerligt uppdaterad. Inom digital teknologi utvecklas ständigt nya möjligheter för virtuella miljöer där inlärning och träning kan ske i en säker miljö och vid användning inom sjukvård utan hot mot patientsäkerheten.  Syfte: Att beskriva operationssjuksköterskors kompetensutveckling i samband med lärande i virtuella miljöer.  Metod: Systematisk litteraturstudie med integrativ studiedesign. Resultatet baseras på 10 vetenskapliga studier från sökningar i databaserna Cinahl och PubMed.  Resultat: Virtuella miljöer för lärande och tränande kan höja operationssjuksköterskors kompetens inom både tekniska och icke-tekniska färdigheter som operationsmetodik, instrumentkännedom och situationsmedvetenhet. Samarbetet med andra yrkesgrupper kan förbättras och självförtroendet öka. Virtuella miljöer är användarvänliga och användbara för inlärning men upplevelse av simulator sickness kan dock påverka användandet.   Slutsats: Virtuella inlärningsmiljöer är användbara för operationssjuksköterskors kompetensutveckling inom flera olika yrkesmässiga kompetenser och färdigheter. 

The challenges imposed by the ever-growing online data processing make it difficult for people to control their data, which inevitably imperils the privacy of their personal information and making informed decisions. Thus, there is an increasing need for different societal, technological, and legal solutions that empower users to take control of their data. The intervenability rights and the enhanced transparency and consent requirements in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) aim to enable users to gain control of their data. However, these rights and requirements will not be beneficial for users in practice without considering their Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) implications.

The objective of this thesis is to propose usable tools and solutions which improve user-centred transparency, intervenability, and consent, thereby empowering users to take control of their data and make informed decisions. To this end, we employ quantitative and qualitative empirical HCI research methods and consider users through the development cycles of the proposed tools and solutions. We investigate how usable ex-post transparency can facilitate intervenability by implementing and testing Transparency-Enhancing Tools (TETs) that run on users' devices. Further, we analyse the effectiveness of engaging users with policy information through different types of interaction techniques on drawing user attention to consent form contents. We extend our investigation to the robustness of varying consent form designs to habituation. Moreover, we study how users perceive our design of adapted consent based on the demands and challenges of the technology at hand.

This thesis contributes to bridging the gap between legally compliant and usable tools and techniques that aim to enable users to maintain control of their data, resulting in several artefacts, design guidelines, and empirical contributions. The artefacts comprise prototypes and mockups of usable TETs and consent forms. The guidelines encompass a set of design requirements for ex-post TETs that run based on privacy notifications and recommendations on how to engage users with consent form contents. Finally, the empirical contributions include the analysis of the effectiveness of the proposed means and methods on enabling users to exercise their intervenability rights and provide informed consent.

Personal data analyses, for instance, in the area of eHealth, can provide many benefits while posing privacy challenges at the same time. Applying differentially private mechanisms have become one of the dominant approaches for the protection of personal data in statistical analyses. Transparency of the privacy functionality of differentially private mechanisms can facilitate informed decision-making for using differentially private systems and understanding the privacy consequences of such decisions. However, differential privacy is a complex concept that makes it a challenge to explain the privacy functionality it comprises to lay users. Our research outlined in this vision paper aims to address this challenge in three phases by creating and analysing metaphors for conveying the functionality of differential privacy to lay data subjects who should decide about sharing their data in the context of differentially private data analysis. In this paper, we report the results of the first two phases of our study for extracting the metaphors and adapting and extending them based on two rounds of analytical evaluations and feedback from privacy experts. Further, we briefly discuss how, in the third phase, we want to move forward and empirically assess the resulting metaphors from previous steps by involving lay users.

Only a few studies have addressed the users' conception of how fingerprint recognition used for different purposes on mobile devices works. This study contributes by investigating how different groups of individuals think that the fingerprint recognition works, why they think so, and also by pointing out differences in pin code and fingerprint issues. The study furthermore yields some results concerning individuals' attitudes towards how sensitive the use of fingerprint sensors is: non-users tended to be more afraid of third-party access than users. On the other hand, users tended to regard the fingerprint pattern as more sensitive than non-users.

This study also manages to give some methodological contributions, namely that mockup user interfaces do not bias the parameters studied in this paper (e.g. understanding of access to fingerprint data), and that self-estimation of knowledge in Computer Security is not a good indicator of respondents' understanding of fingerprint security and privacy. Moreover, people who connected a low degree of sensitivity to fingerprint patterns gave very different reasons for their estimation of sensitivity. This prompts for more research, as it is unclear if different groups would benefit from different information and modes of visualisation to understand what are the issues involved in fingerprint recognition on mobile devices.

When people interact with others, they control how much personal information they reveal, and, hence, make decisions about their privacy. Similarly, in online settings, they decide how much personal information they expose. However, online, their decisions might have greater consequences because of the persistent nature of disclosed information and technological complexities. Hence, technologies should provide people with comprehensive knowledge, enabling informed choices, and reducing privacy risks. Nevertheless, little is known about the interplay of the different factors that influence people's privacy choices. Sometimes, people over-disclose their personal information despite their privacy concerns, presumably relying on fast thinking of homo heuristicus. Yet, it is common to expect that people's decisions should result in more "rational" outcomes; this may decrease privacy risks - here, bringing to the forefront thinking of homo economicus.  This thesis presents insights into the understanding of online privacy decisions. Through a series of studies, we investigate the many factors that influence privacy-related attitudes and behaviors. Our work examines the interaction of the intrinsic (e.g., personality) and extrinsic (e.g., visual design of a privacy interface) determinants of online choices (e.g., disclosure). Overall, we demonstrate the complexity of human decisions in the context of online privacy, suggesting that people's choices are context-dependent and the borders between decisions of the homo heuristicus and economicus are blurry. Thus, we conclude that it is homo varius that can make privacy-aware choices by switching between rational calculations and heuristical thinking, depending on the interplay of different intrinsic and extrinsic determinants. This work provides a knowledge base for future studies investigating privacy decisions. Further, it contributes insights for privacy practitioners (e.g., designers) that may help improve current privacy designs.

Increasing dependency on digital technologies introduces queries related to well-being–when and how digital technology poses a threat, or when it is the most appreciated by users? People have some expectations before using technology, which sometimes may be met, but there might be a mismatch at other times. Nevertheless, the digitalization of services advances and companies modify existing or produce new technologies that do not satisfy users' demands, putting their well-being at risk. Through an empirical inquiry, the present research explores experiences with technologies to shed more light on the main factors that enrich or diminish technology value and influence well-being. Exploiting the circumstances created by the COVID-19 pandemic that fast-forwarded technology use and development, an online inquiry was conducted to assess positive and negative experiences of technologies, focusing on the contexts of work, learning, entertainment, information-seeking, and health. The findings from 578 participants indicate that depending on the role of technologybeing a substitute for certain activities or an opportunity to perform them differently–consequences on well-being can more or less follow expectations. The results are discussed in the context of past research and practical implications for, e.g. technology design or managerial changes that could help overcome users' current challenges. 

Too often, while interacting with online technologies, we blindly agree to services’ terms and conditions (T&Cs). We often disregard their content—believing it is not worth engaging with the long, hard-to-understand texts. The inconspicuous display of online T&Cs on the user interface (UI) adds to our lack of engagement. Nevertheless, certain information included in T&Cs could help usmake optimal decisions. In this replication research, we investigate this issue in the purchasing context. We confirm and extend previous fndings through an online experiment (N = 987), showing that diferently presented T&Cs (icons, scroll, and cost cue) compared to hyperlinked text affect whether people open them, becoming aware. We also show the efect of decision-making style on the relationship between awareness and satisfaction. We discuss the possible use of these fndings to improve users’ informed decisions. We also highlight problems that diferent designs may pose, potentially increasing the information gap between users and service providers.

Consenting to digital services’ privacy policies is standard practice. It often occurs at the early stage of interactions with a given service—during the sign-up process. Still, the most common way of acquiring consent from users is through their acknowledgment of policies by ticking a box. Consequently, users consent, mostly blindly, as they are unlikely to review the full text of policies. The current article presents research investigating factors that may impact user interaction with privacy policies, focusing on the underresearched topic of affective states (valence and arousal). The results of an online experiment (N=88) indicate that privacy policy design can elicit specific affective responses and, when accounting for some characteristics of individuals (e.g., personality traits), it can influence users’ attitudes and behaviors. Particularly, the findings show that privacy awareness and willingness to disclose information might be impacted. Additionally, the analysis of collected data suggests significant associations between some personality traits and affective states, as well as a strong relationship between privacy concerns and willingness to disclose information, contradicting the concept of privacy paradox, often discussed in the privacy literature. Moreover, the results of our qualitative inquiry, where the study respondents had a chance to elaborate on their decisions to agree or disagree with the privacy policy by answering an open-ended question, confirm the quantitative findings, and reveal some of the users needs considering the sign-up process.

We all too often must consent to information collection at an early stage of digital interactions, during application sign-up. Paying low attention to privacy policies, we are rarely aware of processing practices. Drawing on multidisciplinary research, we postulate that privacy policies presenting information in a way that triggers affective responses, together with individual characteristics, may influence privacy attitudes. Through an online quasi-experiment (N=88), we investigate how affect, illustration type, personality, and privacy concerns may influence end-users' willingness to disclose information and privacy awareness. Our results partially confirm these assumptions. We found that the affect may have an impact on privacy awareness, and stable psychological factors may influence disclosures. We discuss the applicability of our findings in interface design and in future research.

Because of the increasing dependency on online technologies in even the most ordinary activities, people have to make privacy decisions during everyday online interactions. Visual design often influences their choices. Hence, it is in the hands of choice architects and designers to guide users towards specific decision outcomes. This “nudging” has gained much interest among scholars in interdisciplinary research, resulting in experimental studies with visual cues that may have the potential to alter attitudes and behaviors. Attitude and behavior changes are often attributed to several psychological effects manifesting in cognitive processing and decision-making. This article presents the results of a systematic literature review carried out to identify which psychological effects have been previously studied in the context of online privacy interactions. Subsequently, fifteen articles were selected and thoroughly reviewed, resulting in the identification of twenty psychological effects. The visual cues triggering these effects were recognized and classified against their capabilities to alter privacy attitudes and behaviors. Specifically, the visual cues were divided into two categories: privacy-enhancing and privacy-deteriorating. This review discusses the applicability of such cues in research and UI design. Further, the findings are discussed against the existing research on digital nudges. The authors conclude with a discussion on issues of research quality in the privacy-related field and outline the road to improvement.

When people sign-up to new online services, privacy notices are the initial means by which data handling practices are communicated. Yet, their design seldom ensures users' privacy comprehension or provides people with privacy choices, resulting in negative feelings associated with the sign-up process. In this paper, we investigate how to improve privacy notice design to enhance privacy comprehension and control, while inducing more positive feelings towards these notices. In an online experiment (N=620), we examine the factors of curiosity, privacy concerns, trust, and time. We study how these factors and visual designs of notices (framing and control) influence privacy comprehension, intention to disclose, and affect (negative-positive). Our results show that, depending on an individual's level of curiosity, control can influence privacy comprehension, disclosure, and affect. We demonstrate that affect moderates the relationship between privacy concerns and disclosure. We elaborate on our results, highlighting how privacy notices that activate curiosity and provide control, could enhance usability and strengthen privacy-conscious behaviors.

This workshop will explore future work in the area of intelligent, conversational, data-driven health interfaces both from patients’ and health care professionals’ perspectives. We aim to bring together a diverse set of experts and stakeholders to jointly discuss the opportunities and challenges at the intersection of public health care provisioning, patient and caretaker empowerment, monitoring provisioning of health care and its quality. This will require AI-supported, conversational decision-making interfaces that adhere to ethical and privacy standards and address issues around agency, control, engagement, motivation, and accessibility. The goal of the workshop is to create a community around intelligent data-driven interfaces and create a road map for their future research.

For new services to be successful, users (customers, patients, citizens, etc.) must embrace and sometimes engage in behaviors that are both new and difficult for them. As research has put more and more emphasis on the importance of being user-centric, it is hard to understand why the behavior change that many times are required for the user has not been problematized more. In this chapter we present five evidence-based ways that describe and explain how behavior change can enable important services such as sustainability, education, and health—services make the world a better place. 

To what extent can virtual reality be used to induce real-life tourism? This question becomes even more relevant in these covid-19 times. However, research on virtual reality concerning tourism has not engaged substantively with this question yet and thus this study seeks to address this question. This thesis is an explorative case study of the development of the prototype of a place-based virtual reality experience of Mariebergsskogen in Karlstad, Sweden. The purpose of this study is to investigate and show how a place-based virtual reality experience can add value to the experience and promotion of Mariebergsskogen. This thesis goes beyond ocularcentrism highlighting the involvement of senses, the whole body and emotions in experiencing a destination. How can a deeper emotional connection to a destination be evoked through virtual reality revealing the characteristics, uniqueness and rootedness of the place?

A geomedia approach is taken that combines a sensitivity to place with media to arrive at a multi-dimensional view of Mariebergsskogen considering place representations, engagements and its roots to history. Place is conceptualized by recourse to Lefebvre’s (2011) spatial triad: lived, perceived and imagined that are in a dialectic relationship. The methodological model created has been informed by the project on place-based digital experiences (PDU) at the University of Karlstad in Sweden. Tourists are considered active agents in creating tourism destinations and this study emphasizes their engagement as co-creators in the prototype development process. A methodological model is proposed that combines a place analysis with workshops consisting of a user study and a co-creation workshop supplemented with insights from interviews with virtual reality developers and stakeholders from Region Värmland and Karlstad Municipality.

There are only a few visualisations targeting the communication of trust statements. Even though there are some advanced and scientifically founded visualisations-like, for example, the opinion triangle, the human trust interface, and T-Viz-the stars interface known from e-commerce platforms is by far the most common one. In this paper, we propose two trust visualisations based on T-Viz, which was recently proposed and successfully evaluated in large user studies. Despite being the most promising proposal, its design is not primarily based on findings from human-computer interaction or cognitive psychology. Our visualisations aim to integrate such findings and to potentially improve decision making in terms of correctness and efficiency. A large user study reveals that our proposed visualisations outperform T-Viz in these factors

Personal data is often disclosed with every registration, sharing, or request of an online service. With the increased usage of things connected to the Internet, users' information being collected and stored, the risks related to unknowingly sharing personal data increases. Sharing of personal information is a sensitive subject and can hurt people’s assets, dignity, personal integrity and other social aspects.

In general, users’ concerns have grown regarding protecting their personal information which has led to the development of multiple privacy-oriented systems. In scenarios where users are logging onto a website or system, they rarely notice, understand or have desire to read the conditions to which they are implicitly agreeing. These systems are often referred to as identity management systems or single sign-on systems. Recent studies have shown that users are not aware of what data transactions take place by using various authentication solutions. It is critical for these types of system dealing with privacy that researchers examine users' understanding of the concepts through interface design.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the usability and user awareness of data transactions for identity management systems on mobile devices by constructing and evaluating different design concepts. Therefore, four different mobile prototypes were designed (called CREDENTIAL Wallet) and explored to measure the usability and also the user awareness of users’ disclosures. 20 usability tests were conducted per prototype.

Multiple conclusions can be drawn from this study. The findings showed that the drag-and-drop prototype scored a high user awareness score in terms of participants remembering their shared data and having a good idea of them not sharing more data than they had actually shared. Consequently, the drag-and-drop prototype achieved the highest usability result. A prototype that utilized swiping was created to fit the mobile medium. The prototype showed the highest user awareness score in the context of participants stating what data they had shared. However, people using the swiping prototype thought they were sharing more data than they actually were. Data show that users have an incorrect mental model of the sharing of their fingerprint pattern. Finally, the writing concerns recommendations and challenges of identity management systems – e.g. the importance of tutorial screens.

Future studies within the CREDENTIAL project are already underway concerning users' incorrect mental model of sharing fingerprint to the service provider side.

Context: Digital Health (DH) is widely considered essential for sustainable future healthcare systems. Software quality, particularly usability, is crucial for the success and adoption of most DH products. However, concerns about the effectiveness and efficiency of usability evaluation of DH products have been raised. Objective: This article aims to analyse the prevalence and application contexts of usability evaluation methods in DH and to highlight potential issues related to their effectiveness and efficiency. Method: A systematic literature review of usability evaluation studies, published by (academic) practitioners between 2016 and April 2023, was conducted. 610 primary articles were identified and analysed, utilising five major scientific databases. Results: Our findings show a preference for inquiry (85%) and testing (63%) methods, with inspection used less frequently (17%). The published studies employed methods like questionnaires (75%); notably the SUS (49%), semi-structured interviews (25%), and heuristic evaluations (73%), with percentages based on their group. Data collection mainly involved the use of participant feedback (45%), audio/video recordings (44%), and system logs (20%), with both qualitative and quantitative data analyses prevalent in studies. However, several usability characteristics such as accessibility, memorability, and operability were found to be largely overlooked, and automation tools or platforms were not widely used. Among the systems evaluated were mHealth applications (70%), telehealth platforms (36%), health information technology (HIT) solutions (29%), personalized medicine (Per. Med.) (17%), wearable devices (12%), and digital therapeutics (DTx) interventions (6%), with the participation of general users, patients, healthcare providers, and informal caregivers varying based on the health condition studied. Furthermore, insights and experiences gathered from 24 articles underscored the importance of a mixed-method approach in usability evaluations, the limitations of traditional methods, the necessity for sector-specific customisation, and the potential benefits of remote usability studies. Moreover, while eye-tracking emerged as a promising evaluation technique, careful execution and interpretation are crucial to avoid data misinterpretation. Conclusion: The study’s findings showed that employing a combination of inquiry and testing-based methods is prevalent for evaluating DH platforms. Despite an array of DH systems, method distribution remained consistent across platforms and targeted user groups. The study also underlines the importance of involving target user groups in the process. Potentially affected cognitive abilities of participants and potential user groups of interest have to be taken into account when choosing evaluation methods, and methods might therefore need to be tailored. Complementary inspection methods might be particularly useful when recruiting representative participants is difficult. Several potential paths for future research are outlined, such as exploring novel technologies like artificial intelligence, for improved automation tool support in the usability evaluation process. 

Purpose

This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of goal setting in organizations, especially regarding the mitigation of conflicting productivity and security goals.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper describes the results of a survey with 200 German employees regarding the effects of goal setting on employees’ security compliance. Based on the survey results, a concept for setting information security goals in organizations building on actionable behavioral recommendations from information security awareness materials is developed. This concept was evaluated in three small- to medium-sized organizations (SMEs) with overall 90 employees.

Findings

The survey results revealed that the presence of rewards for productivity goal achievement is strongly associated with a decrease in security compliance. The evaluation of the goal setting concept indicates that setting their own information security goals is welcomed by employees.

Research limitations/implications

Both studies rely on self-reported data and are, therefore, likely to contain some kind of bias.

Practical implications

Goal setting in organizations has to accommodate for situations, where productivity goals constrain security policy compliance. Introducing the proposed goal setting concept based on relevant actionable behavioral recommendations can help mitigate issues in such situations.

Originality/value

This work furthers the understanding of the factors affecting employee security compliance. Furthermore, the proposed concept can help maximizing the positive effects of goal setting in organizations by mitigating the negative effects through the introduction of meaningful and actionable information security goals.