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Designing for Understanding: How Interface-Level Consent Designs Shape Attention and Understanding in Privacy Disclosures

Wei Xiao, Mengke Wu, Yeeun Jo

Abstract

Privacy policies are intended to support informed consent, yet users rarely read them fully. This study examines how common privacy policy interface structures influence attention allocation, reading behavior, and perceived experience. Using eye-tracking and post-task surveys, we compared three interface designs: continuous scrolling text, collapsible sections, and collapsible sections with brief previews. Results show that interface structure systematically shaped how users allocated attention and navigated policy content, but did not uniformly improve comprehension. Guided layouts supported more efficient and coherent reading patterns, whereas more interactive designs elicited higher perceived engagement and satisfaction. Importantly, comprehension was closely linked to sustained attention rather than interface type alone. These findings highlight the limits of interface-centered consent approaches and suggest that effective consent design must account for attention dynamics and selective engagement, rather than assuming that improved layout alone ensures understanding.

Designing for Understanding: How Interface-Level Consent Designs Shape Attention and Understanding in Privacy Disclosures

Abstract

Privacy policies are intended to support informed consent, yet users rarely read them fully. This study examines how common privacy policy interface structures influence attention allocation, reading behavior, and perceived experience. Using eye-tracking and post-task surveys, we compared three interface designs: continuous scrolling text, collapsible sections, and collapsible sections with brief previews. Results show that interface structure systematically shaped how users allocated attention and navigated policy content, but did not uniformly improve comprehension. Guided layouts supported more efficient and coherent reading patterns, whereas more interactive designs elicited higher perceived engagement and satisfaction. Importantly, comprehension was closely linked to sustained attention rather than interface type alone. These findings highlight the limits of interface-centered consent approaches and suggest that effective consent design must account for attention dynamics and selective engagement, rather than assuming that improved layout alone ensures understanding.
Paper Structure (16 sections, 2 figures, 1 table)

This paper contains 16 sections, 2 figures, 1 table.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Related Work
  3. Privacy Policies
  4. Interface-mediated Engagement with Long-form Disclosures
  5. Method
  6. Experimental Setup and Apparatus
  7. Participants and Procedure
  8. Data Processing and Analysis
  9. Results
  10. Attention Allocation and Reading Behavior
  11. Cognitive Effort and Comprehension
  12. User Evaluations and Perceived Experience
  13. Discussion
  14. Design Implications
  15. Limitations and Future Work
  16. ...and 1 more sections

Figures (2)

  • Figure 1: Privacy Policy Stimuli: (A) Plain (scrolling), (B) Tab (collapsible menus), (C) Highlight (collapsible menus with previews)
  • Figure 2: Reading Order Across Conditions. Rows represent participants and columns represent policy sections (AOI 1–9). Tile colors indicate the sequence in which each section was read (1 = first, 9 = last); gray tiles represent skipped sections.