seminar: "I Agreed to What?!" Re-envisioning License Agreements and Privacy Statements
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Monday, November 9, 2009 |
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"I Agreed to What?!" Re-envisioning License Agreements and Privacy Statements |
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Michael Terry, Assistant Professor, David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo |
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12:00pm |
Talk Abstract
License agreements and privacy statements are common features of software and software services, but less than 2% of the population actually read them. While many companies have little motivation to compel users to read such agreements, there are nonetheless times when it is advantageous to effectively communicate legal terms to one's user base. In this talk, I present Textured Agreements, a visually redesigned software agreement that captures people's attention, conveys the personal relevance of the content, and increases the ease with which one can navigate and read the agreement. Results from experimental studies show that this design significantly increases reading time, leads to increased comprehension, and is preferred by users. Furthermore, our data indicate these results are not simply due to the novelty of the design, but, rather, due to the particular set of design elements chosen.
Speaker Bio
Michael Terry is an assistant professor in the David R. Cheriton School
of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, where he co-directs
the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Lab. His research focuses on
usability in the free/open source software community.