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An Investigation of Comic-Based Permission Requests

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Secure IT Systems (NordSec 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 12556))

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Abstract

Research suggests that permission requests do not adequately inform users about the implications of granting or denying such requests. It is important that informed consent is given should users grant the request. This paper reports on the results of a study that examined novel comic-based permission request design in terms of user response and preferences for permission-granting decisions. We conducted co-design workshops to design the comic-based permission requests. We then compared our comic-based designs to current Android text-based permission requests using five common permission request types in an online survey. Our results showed that 52% of participants preferred the comic-based requests, and 24% the text-based requests. While comics were found to be an effective medium to achieve informed consent, some participants reported that the text-based request offered sufficient information to make decisions. Given that a relatively large number of participants preferred the comic-based permissions, we encourage future designers to consider alternative forms of permission requests.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A full copy of the survey can be found here: https://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~mjust/projects/appPermissions/.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

    Katie Watson, Mike Just & Tessa Berg

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  1. Katie Watson
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  2. Mike Just
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  3. Tessa Berg
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Correspondence to Katie Watson .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

    Mikael Asplund

  2. Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

    Simin Nadjm-Tehrani

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Watson, K., Just, M., Berg, T. (2021). An Investigation of Comic-Based Permission Requests. In: Asplund, M., Nadjm-Tehrani, S. (eds) Secure IT Systems. NordSec 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12556. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70852-8_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70852-8_15

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