As more consumer products and services are getting intelligent and collect data about the user, privacy has become an important topic of debate in society. New rules and legislation are being implemented to safeguard the user’s privacy. In addition, from a technological perspective, developments like the creation of the seven principles of ‘privacy by design’ for systems engineering aim to ensure that privacy is embedded within the functioning of these ‘smart objects’. However, there has not yet been given much attention to creating privacy through interaction design.

This project aimed to create a design approach which has the user’s control over their privacy at its core: The Privacy-Driven Interaction Design approach.

Through the creation of a conceptual framework, this project started with an analysis of existing theory of Human-Computer Interaction. It proposes three design strategies for creating smart objects that give the user control over their privacy:

1 | Design smart objects with Character;
2 | Design smart objects with Expression of Presence;
3 | Design smart objects with Frictional Feedback.

Through cinematic prototyping, this project explores these strategies and implements them in a case study.

For the case study, two smart gloves were created which aid veterans during their therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder. Both of the gloves have different characters to show the impact of the smart object’s character on the interaction between the user and the object. The smart gloves have both a conceptual purpose, which is to demonstrate how the design strategies can be implemented in a design process, and a functional purpose, which is to put the disclosure of information about the veteran’s stress levels and therapy progress in the veteran’s hand.

The conclusions from the creation of the conceptual framework and the smart objects during the case study lead to a guide for the Privacy-Driven Interaction Design approach. This guide is presented in the form of a checklist with ‘design questions’ and ‘design strategies’.

This report aims to present the potential of this design approach and the smart gloves for veterans. However, more extensive research is recommended to further develop both the design approach and the design concepts.