Boosting with Friction: The Effects of Design Friction on Deliberation in the Context of Privacy Decisions

Abstract

People face privacy decisions every day. Digital consent forms aim to acquire consent by a user, but often fail in this aspect by nudging a user towards a certain direction. The user is pushed to make a non- deliberate choice, often resulting in a privacy-unfriendly decision. While quite a lot is known about design patterns that can foster this type of behavior, not much is known about design patterns that can boost decision making, to empower a user to make a more deliberate decision. This study investigates the use of a design pattern called friction to bring forth this deliberation. We looked at the privacy decision, deliberation and user experience of our participants when interacting with a friction pattern compared to a neutral design. Even though no signi cant results were found for these three factors, we do have ground for further research on the matter.