Doing research on privacy? I recommend reading the paper, Why is Evaluating Usability of Privacy Designs So Hard? Lessons Learned from a User Study of PRISM, by Patil and Kobsa from 2009. Basically, they rant about a subject which is dear to my heart: why long-term, real-world, field studies investigating are so difficult. Field studies are always difficult, but running field studies that investigate privacy has its own unique challenges. Their experience aligns quite well with my own. Here are some of their comments:
- Its difficult to simulate the information exchange that actually happen between people in real systems. If the information exchange does not work, you would not get the authentic privacy notions and approaches from users.
- Undergrads, how shall I say it, kind of suck. They have less privacy concerns than the general population (that’s a gross generalization, but it is true in the general case.) Also, I may add that in most cases, they would do the minimal work required to get the reward.
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