Will Deleting History Make Alexa More Trustworthy? Effects of Privacy and Content Customization on User Experience of Smart Speakers

Eugene Cho, S. Shyam Sundar, Saeed Abdullah, Nasim Motalebi

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

41 Scopus citations

Abstract

"Always-on" smart speakers have raised privacy and security concerns, to address which vendors have introduced customizable privacy settings. But, does the act of customizing one's privacy preferences have any effects on user experience and trust? To address this question, we developed an app for Amazon Alexa and conducted a user study (N = 90). Our data show that the affordance to customize privacy settings enhances trust and usability for regular users, while it has adverse effects on power users. In addition, only enabling privacy-setting customization without allowing content customization negatively affects trust among users with higher privacy concerns. When they can customize both content and privacy settings, user trust is highest. That is, while privacy customization may cause reactance among power users, allowing privacy-concerned individuals to simultaneously customize content can help to alleviate the resultant negative effect on trust. These findings have implications for designing more privacy-sensitive and trustworthy smart speakers.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationCHI 2020 - Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
ISBN (Electronic)9781450367080
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 21 2020
Externally publishedYes
Event2020 ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2020 - Honolulu, United States
Duration: Apr 25 2020Apr 30 2020

Publication series

NameConference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings

Conference

Conference2020 ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2020
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityHonolulu
Period4/25/204/30/20

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Software
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design

Keywords

  • customization
  • power usage
  • privacy concern
  • security
  • smart speaker(s)
  • voice assistant(s)

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