How online privacy controls affects our behavior
Here is a sketchnote I made for a privacy law class, summarizing some recent studies on how privacy communications and user behavior works in an online context.
Here is a sketchnote I made for a privacy law class, summarizing some recent studies on how privacy communications and user behavior works in an online context.
In true YouTube style, a YouTube user has made a straightforward, image-rich explainer video of what the legal document says. It was made by Emily Murphy for a course, and provides a rich set of scenarios and examples along with a rundown of the key clauses.
Here is a page of my notebook from the class I’m teaching this quarter at Stanford, on Business-to-Consumer contract redesign. These are some of the ways that we can play with how to improve policy communications to make them more approachable and comprehensible. It’s not exhaustive, but a first pass!
Savannah College of Art and Design graduate Gregg Bernstein has a revised version of Apple’s Terms of Service, which improves upon the layout while still keeping the traditional look and the text-dominant style of communication.
Google offers its users the ability to see their own search history — what Google is storing of their data and queries. The company gives each person the ability to log in and see what Google sees. Along with this info transparency, there is also the ability to then turn off and purge (but is … Read moreGoogle Privacy control dashboard
Natasha Lomas & Romain Dillet wrote a small diatribe against the culture of Terms and Conditions legalese and fine print that currently pervades online business-to-consumer contracts. The main indictments: They are written to be unreadable They have not been written for the digital environment, they’ve just been taken from the offline standard & pasted onto … Read moreTerms And Conditions Are The Biggest Lie Of Our Industry, an article from TechCrunch
The project Terminos y Condiciones from Mallorca Spain is experimenting with new ways to help people stay on top of the terms and conditions they agree to when they use products online & elsewhere. They’ve built a tool that lets you keep track of any changes in companies’ policies. Here’s an article from TechCrunch that … Read moreTerms & Conditions Change-Tracker
On his blog “the [non]billable hour”, legal consultant Matt Homann challenged law firms to design a more readable, engaging, client-centered bill for legal services. If your clients designed your bills, what would they look like? Would they be easier to understand? Contain useful case status information? How about upcoming dates or milestones? Would your bills include information about the … Read moreLegal Bill design, how to show what lawyers do and how much it costs
This schematic from CMU researchers on privacy design presents some of the key vectors to play with when creating a privacy notice — or other kinds of legal communications.
Here is a beautiful series of images explaining financial wellness to employees from HelloWallet.
Literature on behavior change can help us design more engaging notices & legal communications. The company OPower uses these principles to get people excited and invested in their energy bills. Could we use the same communication strategies for legal information?
Another design from US regulators, this time for print-based notices about financial companies’ privacy policies for customers’ data. This was also led by the Kleimann Group.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has an array of designs to help people understand their mortgage deals.
Here are some clips from a wonderful report from US regulators/the Kleimann group about how best to convey tough, complex info to laypeople. Some of them are general to any kinds of communication — others specific to web/desktop communication.
US regulators decided to set a standard for how financial companies can present their privacy information to users. They went through a lengthy design process to create this ideal design.
A mock up of a better kind of Parking Schedule design from a designer in LA.
The New York Times has begun a series of investigative pieces and media clips on the dangers of what is buried in legal fine print in business-to-consumer contracts. There is one on the prevalence of arbitration clauses and the effects they have on people’s constitutional rights to jury trials, and ability to hold corporations accountable. … Read moreBeware the Fine Print: NYTimes investigations into arbitration clauses